Bill's Reality
by starzxxcartoonzs
Summary: It started with Danny trying to keep his secret from the twins. Pfft. That didn't last long, and then Bill had to go along and try to take over the entire multiverse. A lot of bonding, action, and surprises.
1. Chapter 1

**Thanks for reading (or just glancing at my story... I'd prefer if you stayed. It's nice here, y'know? In the land of proper grammar and mostly perfect spelling and punctuation. Except maybe with present and past tense. Oops. Hehe.) Don't be afraid to speak up and criticize my story. I'll adjust. Reviews make me happy, positive or negative. Guess I have nothing to do now except write a story, eh?**

**You want first person in different POV's, or just third person the whole way through? I'll change it if you guys want.**

**BY THE WAY**

**Most of my stories have not been finished FYI, but that was because they were made off of boredom. THIS story was made so I would have a plot I have wanted to read FOREVER :). Before PP and right before the Golf War.**

~Danny~

The bell rang in my ears, spiking my enhanced ghost hearing and almost making me jump a few feet in the air. I almost naturally transformed into my alter-ego from fright. After re-adjusting to my surroundings, I realized I was just in Lancer's class and had fallen asleep.

The night before had been filled with an awful fight between Ember and Skulker. Usually, it would have taken about twenty minutes to defeat them, but then Vlad stepped into the mess. Skulker had picked up some new equipment, probably from Vlad, and was testing it out on me. Meanwhile, the other halfa just sat in the air and ate popcorn, watching me get beat up. Ember was just there to cheer her boyfriend on, but eventually her hatred for me gave in and she began attacking. Once the happy couple was tucked away in the thermos, Vlad fought me when I was exhausted and weak, just for laughs. How humorous. He snagged my thermos off me and then left me alone. When I finally got home around 5 AM, it took a lot of overshadowing that I did not have the energy for to get out of trouble. I ended up crashing on the couch.

It was a bad night, to say the least.

On the way to class with Tucker and Sam, I fell silent while the two droned on about something teenagerish. Tucker eventually noticed me blankly staring ahead and waved his hand in my face, commenting, "Hello? Earth to Danny? Helloooo?" My eyes sleepily looked at him as we dragged on to our next class.

"Danny, we were thinking, Nasty Burger after school?" Sam asked, helping Tucker catch me as I almost fell from my backpack's weight. I was too tired to be at school, especially with my excessive ghost hunting equipment making my backpack heavier. Oh, not to mention the piles of homework I never had time to do and was too lazy to clean out of my backpack. Being a superhero definitely had its advantages and disadvantages. "Whoa, Danny, you don't look so hot. You okay?"

"So now I'm not hot? Today really isn't a good day," I replied in a low, half-asleep voice. Sam blushed. "I'll be fine. Just.. Skulker, Vlad, and Ember. Why not throw in Valerie, Technus, Johnny, and anyone else who hates my guts into the mix?"

"...Rough night, eh?" Tucker said, patting me on the back. "I've gone some Mountain Dew if you want it. May wake you up." He pulled a bottle out of his backpack.

Sam glared at him. "Hey! You said you had no more left," she growled.

"Oh. Whoops... Guess I do have some!" Tucker nervously chuckled and handed me the bottle. "Just had to, er.. I guess I just forgot! But Danny needs it now, don't you, buddy? No need to thank me." Sam was not amused. She stomped on Tucker's foot and he yelled in pain.

I popped the lid off of my soda and took a sip. Ick. It was warm. I tightened my hand around the bottle and proceeded to cool it down with power from my ice core. See, this was one of the advantages I was talking about! Never having to deal with room temperature drinks. There was the whole saving people, flight, invisibility, intangibility, built in guns.. Just a long list of my abilities that were helpful. Even though I could try to complain about the bad side, I would never switch my life if I had the chance.

"So, Nasty Burger after school, Danny?" Sam repeated. I finished drinking my soda. It woke me up a little bit, but not very much.

"Yeah, sure.." I didn't really pay attention to what she had just said. We finally reached our class. Once we got to lunch, I ate a sandwich and fell asleep on the table.

I transformed into Danny Phantom and rose from my seat. All the kids around me stared, mouths wide open. Different ghost hunters came in, and Valerie changed into her hunting equipment. All my classmates began cheering all the hunters on. Out of nowhere, more and more ghosts began to phase through the ground. All the people were oblivious to the attacks and kept attacking me. Sam and Tucker quickly ran out of the cafeteria, glancing back once with an apologetic smile. I tried to fend the humans off without hurting them, and then dealt extra deal to all the ghosts. "Danny!" Someone shouted.. The voice was so familiar. "Danny? Daaaanny!" I looked around and got tackled by all my enemies. "Danny!"

My head rose really suddenly. I looked down at myself, in my normal clothes and in my normal form. Just a dream. "Danny!" Sam shouted at me. "Finally. Your eyes were glowing through your eyelids."

"As if people around here don't already think we're weird enough," Tucker mumbled.

"Wh-what? Did anyone notice?!" I looked around, looking for any wide-eyed kids. I made sure I was completely Fenton.

"No. We didn't notice until a minute ago. It was just a faint glow," Sam said. "Stop worrying Danny, nobody here knows your secret or would even suspect." Oh, right. I am Danny Fenton to them, not Danny Phantom. Nothing about that name clicked in their heads. Even Valerie was clueless.

"Right.. Right. Nobody here knows my secret." I tried to forget my dream, or rather, my nightmare. Sam raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Are you sure you're okay Danny?" Her voice sounded so caring.. My friends were the best. I nodded my head and smiled warmly at her. "Well, then you want to go to Nasty Burger after school with Tucker and me?"

"I can't. My grades are starting to massively suffer from my lack of completed homework. I need to get at least half credit on the assignments that teachers will let me turn in late," I explained. "Trust me, I'd much rather be at a burger joint with my best friends." _And a night off, every once in awhile, _I silently added.

Once we finally were finished with school, I went home to do my work. I had barely finished that night's homework before I got a weird feeling, like someone was watching me. Instinctively, I turned into Phantom. "Time out!" A time medallion was placed around my neck. I stared up at Clockwork, in his adult form.

"Clockwork? What's up? Is something wrong?" I'd spoken to my ally a few times, but he usually contacted me when something bad was happening. Nothing seemed to be wrong, except that I was completely drained and needed a nap, but that was becoming normal.

"Danny, I need to send you on a vacation." _Finally, _I thought. _A vacation. A time for leisure and recreation. _I frowned. _Unless you're me. This is probably some ghost hunting thing or life lesson. Ugh._

"Where to?"

"Gravity Falls, Oregon." Clockwork was frowning. There was something he was not telling me.

"Never heard of the town," I replied, waiting for him to tell me what he was hiding.

"It's not big, like New York City or Los Angeles or Tokyo. Those who have heard of it know it because of supernatural activity. Much of the havoc caused there isn't by ghosts, but by other inhuman creatures. There are some ghost portals in the ghost zone to there, actually."

"I've explored the ghost zone, Clockwork, and never seen them."

"They're hidden, Danny. I need to send you there to stop a threat. I would step in.. but he's powerful. If I get destroyed by him, all my work I've done goes, too." The Nasty Burger explosion! That would be erased. "...But your close ones wouldn't be the only ones gone. I have many other good works that, if undone, can destroy the world as we know it."

"You said he. Who is he?"

"His name is Bill Cipher. I'm going to give you a week in advance to warm up to the town, because some weird things can go on there."

"He sounds powerful, why have I never heard of him?"

Clockwork scratched his head. "Well... Danny, to tell you the truth... It's not in our dimension. I need to send you there to defeat him, or the fool could make all dimensions collapse."

I let that sink in for a moment. "...What's it like there? Bigfoots as the inhabitants, aliens trying to take over (Heh. Saving THAT for another fanfic...), mermaids and mermen rule the planet?" (He said it the way he was listing the terrible things that the Cheese king or whoever when he first met Vlad could do to him). I was anticipating this place to be weird, especially since Clockwork was giving me time to adjust.

"No, actually. It's very similar to your world. Humans roam there, and you would be very uncommon. I'm placing you there, much like I had the mix of Technus and Skulker placed in your time to attack you. The difference is that your role is crucial to everyone's survival."

"Well, what's the difference between there and here?"

"666 years ago, Bill Cipher formed when a few men attempted to make something similar to another Pandora's box. They wanted to transport apparitions of dark magic to another kingdom for their own benefit. He's an evil dream demon and he's insane. What he does has very heavy consequences. He's similar to Freak Show. His intentions are to flip reality to the mind realm, where he is all powerful. While it may work for a few minutes, everything begins to slowly crumble until there is nothing. If I disrupt his creation in the past, the evil spirits used to make him will end your world."

I breathed out heavily and rubbed the back of my neck. What could I do? There was no way I could back out of this. Clockwork must have had faith in me, or else he wouldn't have asked me. "What about Amity Park? Who will protect Amity Park?"

"I've already spoken to Valerie and Dani."

I laughed a little. "How did Valerie react to a ghost asking her for help?"

"I... Indirectly spoke to Valerie through Dani. They're actually pretty good friends. She wouldn't listen to me if I tried." Weird how someone can be the best of friends with your clone, but hate your guts.

"Good. Maybe Valerie will learn to fight actual bad guys, instead of making me her favorite... My mom and dad. What about them?" A robot rolled into the room with a wig similar to my hair.

"Hello Danny!" It said in a robotic voice, similar to my own.

I rolled my eyes. "Is this really going to cut it? My parents are smart..." I thought about that for a moment. "Well, my mom is smart..."

"Just trust me, Danny."

"What about Sam, Tucker, and Jazz? I have to tell them."

"No! You cannot tell them. No matter what. Danny, you will see them again, but you have to trust me. Are you ready to go?"

"Right this instant? As in, right now? Not later?"

Clockwork nodded. "One more thing. You cannot reveal your secret, no matter what. The place is crawling with government agents and experienced hunters. They will not trust easily, but you need to make allies, human or ghost. Both forms need friends. Are you ready to go?"

"I... I guess." This was a big decision. I had nobody to back me up, either. Without Sam and Tucker, I couldn't get caught once, or else I would be trapped.

"Thank you, Danny." Ghosts rarely thanked me. "Transform and take off your time medallion so I can transport you."

Two familiar rings formed around my waist, changing me back. I closed my eyes and took off the medallion. When my eyes reopened...

**Thanks for reading! New chapter will be up tonight or tomorrow.**


	2. Chapter 2

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_"Thank you, Danny." Ghosts rarely thanked me. "Transform and take off your time medallion so I can transport you."_

_Two familiar rings formed around my waist, changing me back. I closed my eyes and took off the medallion. When my eyes reopened..._

**BEFORE CHAPTER 2 STARTS: Italics from here on down are his thoughts, things in parenthesis are just little side notes I didn't think I could fit into his POV. Now, enjoy the story!**

~Danny~

When my eyes reopened, I was in a forest. There were crummy signs pounded into trees pointing to somewhere, which I thought was odd. I couldn't see a street near me. _Directions. Lucky me, I suppose. _I followed the signs and saw a place called the Mystery Shack. It looked like your basic tourist trap. The S was missing in Shack, so it spelled Mystery Hack. The S was away from the roof on the ground and being chewed on by a goat. Judging by the sky, it was nearing 6, which was about the time when I had left. My stomach growled at me. _That's right.. I've only had a sandwich today. I don't think I even had breakfast. Mmph. _After awhile, I found a gift shop portion of the shack. _Maybe it has protein bars? Wouldn't hurt to go in, anyways. I need to learn this town. _Much to my stomach's despair, there was no food and only overpriced items. My hunger kept screaming at me the entire time, not to mention I needed sleep. I was in bad condition. I loitered around, not really interested in the merchandise, but not really wanting to leave, either. There were two girls in a corner that snickered to each other, said a few words, and then looked over at me. I guess they saw me staring because one of them came over to talk to me. They looked about 12 or 13. A brown haired girl with big green eyes and a sweater on skipped over. She held her hand out for a handshake. _How are you wearing a sweater? It's like, 96 degrees outside._

"Hi! I'm Mabel!" She looked at my shirt and gasped. "O-M-G! I love red circles. I like the color red, actually. Well, all colors. Ooh! Oh! I love the RAINBOW! The rainbow is so pretty! Except on smile dip. Bleh! Rainbows, puppies... Do you like puppies? Because I LOVE puppies!"

I blinked at the girl's rant. "Umm.. Yeah. I have a dog back at home named Cujo." _I shouldn't talk about ghosts to these people.. Ugh, shut your mouth, Danny. _"And thanks, I guess. I do wear this shirt a lot..."

"You know, your black hair is awful cute... I could just ruffle it for days!"

Mabel's short, black haired friend came up behind her. "Oooh, Mabel, look at his eyes. So pretty and blue. I am Candy!"

"Uhhh.. Excuse us for a second!" Mabel dragged Candy away by a few feet. I listened in with my super-hearing, although they weren't that far away. I could probably hear them with normal ears.

"Candy, I told you, this one is mine!"

"But Mabel, we have the same color of hair!"

"I warmed him up!"

"I guess we'll see which one of us he likes better."

"Grenda would be able to decide if she were here... Sleepovers just aren't as destructive without her!" The two nodded in agreement and walked back over to me.

"Hey, how would you feel if we kissed. Like, right now," Mabel grinned.

My eyes widened. I mean, she was only a year or two younger than me, but still... Sam was back home. I couldn't betray her like that. It wasn't like our fake-out make-outs had meant much, but... Well... It's complicated. We weren't dating, were we? Sam and I never officially started dating... Heh.. I wish we had though. What? Was someone talking? Oh yeah. "Uhhh.. What was your name again?"

She punched me really hard in the arm and laughed really loudly and awkwardly. "Mabel, silly! Haha! Hah!" A red-head at the checkout counter stared at us, half-smiling. Mabel poked her friend in the arm. "Tag... tag..."

"I'm Candy, your dream girl." She twirled in her hair, but it knotted mid-curl. "Heh! Heh heh." Candy quickly untangled her hair. "Love is in the air, isn't it? Breathe it in." She breathed in really deeply to demonstrate. I was holding my breath, but that was interrupted by my ghost sense. Great. I just love vacations, don't you?

"I'm sorry ladies, but I have to go to the bathroom. Badly. Where is it?" Mabel pointed me to it. "Thank you!" I sprinted into it and transformed. In this dimension, I would have to be careful. Nobody knew Danny Phantom existed. As I phased through the wall, I stayed intangible and invisible. Outside of the shack was chaos. Shoppers were running around wildly, and one kid was frantically flipping through a book. I flew up beside him to see what the book was about. He was mumbling to himself.

"zombies..gnomes..c'mon...ghosts? Where's ghosts? There it is," he said to himself. I looked up, only to see Skulker. _Already? How did he find me...or even GET here?_

"Ghost child, just accept your defeat!" Have to stay... invisible... have to keep from being seen.. Government agents and hunters. That didn't sound good. My hunger and exhaustion was beginning to kick in, and it was even worse than before. Phantom was eating up my energy. I couldn't stay in my form, otherwise I would risk transforming in front of everyone. I flew back into the shack's bathroom and changed back. Once I exited through the front in my human form, Skulker was already starting another fight. The guy with the book seemed to be keeping him busy, but it wouldn't last for long. Suddenly, he began chanting. "_Yek si htaed morf gnivas, em gnikcatta erutaerc eht eci._" A circle formed around Skulker, slowly freezing him. I didn't do that. At least, I didn't think I did... The kid who had been chanting looked around, freaked out and with a worried look on their face.

"I'll take it from here..." I said to him. He just looked confused. Quickly, I took the thermos out of my backpack and Skulker inside of it. "Done. No need to thank me."

He was silent for a moment, but then began talking. "What..who..where..What is that thing?!" The boy finally managed his words and pointed at the Fenton thermos. "There's a ghost inside there!"

"No..." I quickly thought of an excuse. _You idiot! This may be a freaky town, but that doesn't mean that they are used to supernatural happenings! _"Ghost? You must be mistaken. I just closed my hologram." He glared at me funny. I don't think he bought it, so I added in some fake laughter. It was a pretty sucky and unbelievable excuse. I was never good at lying. That was always Sam's job... "What's wrong, kid? Isn't a guy allowed to have a pet hologram?"

"Dipper.. Not kid. The name's Dipper Pines." Dipper tilted his pine tree hat upwards. "Why do I find it so hard to believe that you have a pet hologram? There was nothing for it to project on... I've never seen a hologram like THAT before. My spell.. It worked on it, too."

"Your what?" That's what he was doing. "Like, magic spell? What's that book?"

His facial expression was very alarmed. Dipper hugged his book very close to his chest. "A...uh.. Nothing! Just a book on space. Astronomy, space, stars, and... yep!" _Didn't look like a space book..._ I figured it was better not to stick my noses too closely in other people's business (Unless I'm invisible. Then the snooping begins). My stomach roared like a frickin lion. I was hungry and tired. Dipper was a bit startled by it, but was definitely more surprised when the girl from earlier, Mabel, popped out from behind him. "You're HUNGRY?! I'm hungry, too. We should go eat something. Do you like diners? I love diners. What about pies?! Greasy's Diner has the BEST pies!"

I patted my jean pockets and groaned. "Can't. I'm broke." _Oh, great..._

"I can arrange something! You can come with Dipper and me there! Grunkle Stan can drive!" I cocked my head to the side. Grunkle? What the heck is a grunkle?

"I never agreed to come," Dipper responded.

"Too bad! Stan is driving us there so he can meet... What's your name?"

"Danny."

"Mabel, I'm pretty sure Stan's eyes need better than glasses to be able to drive us anywhere safely," Dipper said. I noticed that the two looked pretty similar. "Let's just walk."

"Danny... Such a hot name."

"Hey, are you two related?" I ignored my stomach growling at me, again.

Mabel nodded happily. "Yep! We're twins. Twin, twin, twins. On Halloween, we have matching outfits. I'm older though."

"By five minutes!" Dipper added.

"Yeah, whatever." She continued to talk on and on as we proceeded to walk to the diner. "Let's get a big, cherry pie!" After we ordered the food, my stomach was pretty full. My body was demanding sleep at this point. I was one sugar crash away from sleeping in the middle of the street. I yawned and wondered where I would stay. Hmm.. This girl seemed to like me. I guess I could use that...

"Hey," I yawned. "You guys have a place I could crash at for the night?"

Mabel viciously nodded. "Oh yes, oh yeah! Please! We can stay up all night and read books and talk and talk..." I swear her pupils tripled in size. "We can learn each other's secrets..." I sweated a little bit at the mention of secrets. Dipper had been eyeing me the entire time I had been eating. Sure, I hadn't been eating very neatly, but could you blame me? I was so hungry. They had heard my dinosaur stomach. (rawwwwwr!)

"I was actually thinking of just sleeping. Just need a place to crash at for the night."

"Oh..." She sounded disappointed. "Well, we have a couch. It's only 8, though. Dipper and I are allowed to stay up until 10. You want to watch Ducktective with us?"

_Ducktective? _I silently wondered. "I'll sleep anywhere at this point." There were bags beginning to form under my eyes. "Please..."

We walked back to the shack. Mabel went upstairs to go 'freshen up' and 'get a surprise.' Right when I was about to fall asleep on the couch, Dipper walked up to me. "I have some questions for you..."

"Can it wait til the morning, kid?"

"I'm not a kid! And no, it can't."

Too late. I drifted off into sleep...

A yellow, brick triangle with a single eye appeared in front of me. The area around me was black. He squinted at me. "Well, well, well. Look who we have here." He scratched his head. "Seriously, who are you? I've been watching this town forever and not once have you shown up..." I considered transforming into Phantom, but this Dorito chip didn't seem to know who I was. He didn't have a mouth, but could still express sound.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" I just wanted to get this conversation over with...

"I'm Bill Cipher." The world seemed to stop for a moment, and my heartbeat seemed to get louder. Uh oh. Didn't Clockwork say something about dream demon? And evil? "I want that thermos thing you used earlier. I don't know what it was or did, but you showed up when Pine Tree was battling that ghost. _Phew. He didn't see Phantom. _

"Yeah, it's a gift from my parents. Was supposed to be a soup container, but they're ghost inventors. Their inventions don't always end up quite right. Why do you want it?"

"I've got to confiscate your illegal items, Danny." _Illegal? _"I'm just kidding. Hey, maybe I could make it worth your while to give it to me..." The triangle's eye seemed to light up. Was he about to propose a deal?

**It's a quarter after one, I'm not drunk.. and I need sleep now. Danny's exhaustion was inspired by my own. G'night.**


	3. Chapter 3

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_"Yeah, it's a gift from my parents. Was supposed to be a soup container, but they're ghost inventors. Their inventions don't always end up quite right. Why do you want it?"_

_"I've got to confiscate your illegal items, Danny." Illegal? "I'm just kidding. Hey, maybe I could make it worth your while to give it to me..." The triangle's eye seemed to light up. Was he about to propose a deal?_

**Thank you for all your reviews and favorites (and follows). As I said in Chapter 1, they're all appreciated. By the way, if you've looked at my other stories at this point, I'm so sorry. I should probably delete those for the sake of your sanity. (Not your sanity, or the person sitting behind you, just YOUR sanity. *winks*)... I need to stop talking. Enjoy!**

~Danny~

"Look, kid. You're new here. I don't know what summoned you or who you're working for, and quite honestly, I don't care." Pine tree... Pine tree... My mind was beginning to piece things together. We were in the middle of the woods, and it could mean a bazillion things. "That thing is probably useless to you. If it can capture things inside of it... Well, let's just say there's a few _people _that I need to take care of." Good. He still didn't know it was just to grab ghost energy. Wait... Pine Tree? If he was watching him (or it) while I was fighting... Dipper had a pine tree on his hat. Could he have been referring to the boy?

"Were you stalking Dipper?" A six hundred year old triangle stalking a 12 year old and I've only been here one night. Guess I wasn't going to look for the portals back to here, not like I could find them. They were hidden. That raises the question: how did Skulker get through? I don't think Clockwork sent him, but who knows what Clockwork does. Even if Skulker had known where the hidden portals were, there would be no way he would have known where I was.

"Yes!" Maybe he truly was insane, like Clockwork said.

"You just openly admit that...? Huh... Maybe I have found someone more crazed and loopy than Vlad," I remarked. "If I were to EVER give you the Fenton thermos, what would I get in return?" There were three in my backpack, just in case. My ghost sense hadn't been going crazy yet, but I kept getting this weird chill. I think I may have seen a gnome once or twice.

"Danny, your thermos could get in the way of my plans. You can hand it over now, or you can let me take it by force." Bill shrugged. "Whatever suits you."

_Well, you __demented triangle, I'm here to stop said plans. _"I'm not giving it up without a fight. Make an offer or leave this place," I said, then studied our surroundings. "Speaking of this place, where are we?"

"Your mind, kid. All I know is that you aren't from around here.. You might want some advice about this town, and I know some things." Images rapidly flashed through his single eye. "Lots of things..." He snapped back to normal. "I just want that thermos."

"Not a chance, Creepazoid." I kept a close hand on my backpack. "No way you're ever getting this!"

"I wouldn't say no way... But I'll just keep a close eye on you for now." Oh crap. If he watches me, that means I can't go ghost. I don't care if he's a supernatural being, he's an uninformed one and I'd rather keep it that way. "I'll be watching you..."

~Dipper~

I've never seen this guy in my life. He suddenly shows up as Mabel's crush of the week, and I've never noticed him? I can't be expected to know everyone, but I'm halfway through the summer and Danny pops up without any place of residence and these unnerving blue eyes. My conspiracies about Gravity Falls grew and grew the more I learned. It was a dangerous place where I couldn't trust another living soul (well, except Mabel). Mabel would put down any suspicions I sent her way until I had rock hard evidence. Her crush of the week, or month, or even day was usually the perfect being in her eyes.

It happened like this:

Throughout Ducktective, I kept staring over at Danny. He was sitting in the big chair, while Mabel and I were on the floor. She was so absorbed with the show that she barely noticed me looking over at him and studying him. Although I didn't have a pen for documenting every movement he made (I had chewed through the ones I kept in my vest), I mentally kept track of anything off about him. Silently, I made note of his sleeping position, how he was curled up, and the occasional expression of anger. A nightmare, maybe? What really was weird was when his eyelids began to glow. Not in the cute way Mabel would think I was talking about, but a toxic green was illuminating from his eyelids. It wouldn't be noticeable if you weren't obsessively watching him because it was very faint. Something wasn't right about him.

Danny's eyelids began to fade to a normal peach skin color. _Huh... _I began to think, when he sat up. His electric blue eyes burst open. Sweat was traveling down his face and he was breathing heavily. He ran his hands through his hair and relaxed his body's position on the couch. I heard him mumble something, but it was inaudible. What was that kid dreaming about? Mabel turned around to see what all the commotion was about. She gasped when she saw him awake and began to twirl her hair around her finger. "So.. Now that you're awake..." The two awkwardly chatted for a bit until Danny fell back asleep.

That's how it ended. Weird, huh?

Pshaw! Mind blown! Even though I love my mystery twin, Mabel, I had a feeling that I would need to consult Soos about this. My sister could let her emotions get ahead of her sometimes and could be too trusting (little did he know that all her trust drains from his hands in Not What He Seems...). Besides, Soos was logical, handy, and a 'pretty cool dude.' I wasn't traveling too fast with my thoughts, was I? Sometimes conspiracy could cloud my brain, much like Mabel's goal for love could clog hers.

"I'm going to... uh... go get something berightback!" I said quickly. It was only about 8:30. Soos should still be here, cleaning up in the gift shop. I made my way down to the store portion of the shack and greeted Soos. He had lived in this town for a long time and was very smart, especially when it came to reasoning with my ideas about the supernatural...even though he couldn't say pterodactyl right.

~Danny~

"I'm going to... uh... go get something berightback!"

What could _that _have been about?

"Sorry about my brother... Boys.. so immature. Unlike men..." Mabel laid her hand over mine, which I hastily tore away. I felt my cheeks redden. "Ooh, feisty. I like that."

"Hey, I'm flattered and all, but men need their sleep."

"You get your beauty sleep, I'll be here in the morning." She winked and left the room. Finally.

~Dipper~

"Soos, did you meet the new guy?" He had been inspecting the cash register. I remember hearing Grunkle Stan freaking out about it breaking earlier and telling Soos to get right on it.

"New dude? Black hair, blue eyes?" I nodded. "Yeah. I saw him earlier just hanging around. He looked drained. You know what his deal was?"

"I was watching Ducktective, and suddenly, his eyes start flashing green. Like, to-" My voice cracked.. ugh. "-toxic barrel green! Well, it was more of a glow, but still! That's not normal, right?" I sighed. "Am I crazy, Soos? Do you think it was out of the ordinary?"

"Flashing green? Hmm..." His eyes lit up. "There was a legend..."

"A legend?"

He tipped his hat. "Abuelita told me it when I was little. It was pretty spooky at the time. My brain may be a bit rough around the edges, though. You wanna hear?" I guess he took my astonished face as a yes. "'_There will someday be a great tragedy, when those you love will fall. When said time comes into play, someone will come to save us all. His person is unknown, his eyes glow green, it won't be like something you've ever seen. His hair is white and he is DP, and he is here to save you and me. The hero will stay to guide us on our way, fists like steel and power that's insane, but nothing you nor I could ever obtain. _It kind of faded off into something about onions. Maybe that was just my little youngster mind floating off about something silly." He laughed and pulled an unwrapped lollipop out of his pocket. There were a few hairs on it and pocket lint. "But who would want something as gross as onions, am I right?" I winced a little. Yuck.

I sat, looking, or rather, thinking about the facts for a moment. Could Danny be the guy from the legend? "Do you think its him?" I began to pacify my thoughts... Nothing in that legend applied, except for the small green glow. "It wasn't much of a glow, and it was just his eyelids... I didn't know him beforehand, but we could have just missed him."

"You say you were watching TV? Maybe it was just Ducktective.. That wise little duck." Soos chuckled. "But it could have been shining onto his eyelids."

"I'm still not sure... He was acting really weird."

"You said black hair and blue eyes, right? This legend might not even be true.. Abuelita usually told me stories. Who knows, maybe they were just fake... which means..." Soos looked out at the door. "I've gotta run, Dipper. Good luck!" he shouted as he sprinted out the door.

"Thanks Soos!" I called back out to him. After I shut the door, I leaned against it until I finally hit the floor and moaned. What kind of business was this guy trying to do? He was playing a dangerous game, but he was playing a dangerous game against the Pines. I sighed and took my hat off my head. Maybe I didn't exactly have the over imagination Stan had mentioned when he told the government guys, but I definitely had a mind that liked to spread my theories. I hated being wrong since I was so used to being right. Maybe the journal would have something to say about it. I began to flip through the pages...

**Sorry for such a short chapter! I usually try to make them about 2100 words, but I really need some time to think over what's going to happen next, so it's about 100 words shorter. Not too much of a problem, right...? Thanks, love you all. Give me your input if something seems screwed up or if you have a suggestion, by the way.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry about the day's wait. Usually, that wouldn't be that big, but I like to update every day. At 110 WPM on a keyboard, I feel it's my duty. Thank you for all your support!**

**THIS CHAPTER WILL BE IN THIRD PERSON.**

**PLEASE, please PLEASE! Review it, please! Tell me if you like it or not! Many things I will do to my own taste, but I want your opinion on first or third person.**

"Nothing, nothing! It's useless!" Dipper yelled out in frustration, waking his twin sister, Mabel. She popped her head out of bed. Her shiny eyes looked tired and annoyed. He ignored his sister and proceeded to chew on the end of his pen. Something different and inaudible was mumbled from both of the two, probably both out of being exhausted. Dipper's brain was starting to hurt. _Never hurts to do a mental workout, I guess... _he thought to himself. The boy rapidly flipped through pages in the journal, flashing his black light on and off. Eventually, Mabel decided she was fed up with it. She snatched the book out of his hands and stuffed it up her Win 98 convention nightgown. Dipper, startled by this event, froze for a moment. He nearly swore to himself. Was the journal really worth _that? _(nothing dirty is going to happen, just in case any of you are wondering...no Pinecest here. Ever.) "Hey!"

"THIS is what I meant by keeping me up at night with your summer reading!" Mabel's tone wasn't very angry; she was often too happy to be mad. She was just a bit ticked, but soon snapped into an exasperated, worried girl. "Dipper, it's got to be midnight. You have to go to bed. What are you even looking for, anyway?"

"Well, you're not going to like it..." He started, but she cut him off.

"I swear, if you think Danny is a werewolf or a hydra or some other weird mythically thingy..." She sounded like she was about to give a threat, but backed out of the sentence. After a moment of contemplation, Mabel just sighed. "Please just don't make him leave, Dipper. I just want a successful summer romance."

Dipper furrowed his brow in thought. He didn't want to hurt Mabel, but he also wanted to expose Danny for what he really was. Honestly, the Journal had given him nothing and doing any research at the library would involve knowing what he was going to search for. There were no clues, no evidence, but some things about Danny just didn't quite add up in his head. Maybe he would try to ignore it for his sister's sake.. Who knows, he could be a completely normal guy and Dipper was just accustomed to the weirdness of Gravity Falls. After realizing Mabel was still there, he gave in. "Fine, I'll try to stay out of it.

"I'm holding onto the journal, okay?" She slipped it out from under her pajamas.

"Just give me the journal back in the morning, okay? Don't let anything happen to it."

"No problem, bro bro." She playfully winked at him.

"I'm serious, Mabel."

"Don't worry, it's as much my secret as it is yours." The girl trotted off to bed, satisfied with winning the argument. The two fell asleep.

Dipper opened his eyes in a black, hollow area. He was levitating off of the, well, air. There was no ground. _Uh oh... I know what this means._ Bill (by the way, tacocatcookies says hi!) appeared before the boy, and even though he didn't have a mouth, Dipper imagined that he would have had a crooked smile. "What do you want, Bill?!" He would have menacingly stomped his left foot forward, but he was floating in the middle of nowhere.

"The same thing you want." Bill twiddled his thumbs, ready to make a firey blue deal.

"I don't have the same motives as you. I never will!" Dipper shouted, curling his fists. Bill's insane laugh echoed around the hollow realm.

"But I never said anything about why I wanted it..." The dull black changed to an unfazed Danny sucking in Skulker with the thermos. "I just want information, Pine Tree."

"I thought you knew everything, Cipher. What's the catch? What angle are you playing?" The triangle put his hands in the air as a sign of innocence and surrender. Dipper knew better. "Stop messing around." Bill was silent for a moment.

"Lots of things, lots of things, kid. Not everything. I thought I was pretty close to knowing everything, until the stupid kid on your couch up and ruined everything..." That got Dipper's guard up. "He could be a hazard to me and you. So what do you say, will you work with me?" Bill held out a glowing blue hand. Dipper slapped his hand away.

"Ruined everything...? You're planning something, Bill. No way will I help you!"

"I never said help, I said work with. Geez, kid, you need to really work on your listening skills." Dipper rolled his eyes.

"I'm.. I'm dreaming, right? Bill, leave me alone! Let me have a peaceful night!"

Dipper sat up in a cold sweat. Whatever Bill was doing, Danny had to be a part of it. He just had feeling.

Mabel woke Danny up at nine. She led him into the kitchen where Stan was up, bright and early, making pancakes. He had bags under his eyes and seemed unsteady with the spatula, like something had kept him up all night. A few minutes later, the watery mix turned into golden pancakes. Dipper stumbled downstairs right about at that time. He felt all jittery and awkward from Bill's dream the night prior. Something was happening right around him and it bothered the crap out of him to not know what it was. Sneakily, he tried to stare up at Danny when he got the chance. Mabel had almost convinced him last night that Danny was normal. Almost. She, by the way, was off the hook with flirting. She had finally managed to find a cute boy, no, older man. Mabel did it all: batted her eyelashes, flipped her hair, made her voice a tinge higher, felt his muscles, 'accidentally' spilled water all over him and got a napkin to clean him right up with.

Danny had the weird feeling he was being watched. Dipper kept acting suspicious whenever he would engage in a friendly conversation, and Stan kept questioning where he had came from. Mabel had told Danny not to worry, her Grunkle usually was nicer to people when they had money, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Grunkle Stan was acting suspicious towards Danny. He was also the person in Gravity Falls who reminded him the most of Vlad, which made him uncomfortable. After breakfast, the two seperated quickly. It was like they were two negative magnets trying to attract. Danny knew one thing... He was going to find out more about this weird town before anything else.

**Not much of a stopping place, I know. It's also a LOT shorter of a chapter, and I am sorry! Yes, I still am going to continue this story, but I didn't want to go more than 2 days without pumping out something new and this is what I had. Please don't expect much over the weekdays; school, especially as it is getting closer to an end, is becoming more overwhelming. Weekends is where I mass produce chapters. Thank you for all your support!**


	5. Chapter 5

**I. FORGOT. MY. EMAIL. And... I FOUND IT! NEVER FORGET YOUR EMAIL FOR YOUR FAN FICTION ACCOUNT! EVER! Such a delay, I know. I'm sorry! I was freaking out. The story got a thousand views and I just sort of... well, died inside because I could not do a stupid thing about it. My bad, my stupidity, I accidentally deleted my auto-fill login info when clearing my browser history. Oopsie-daisies. I'm back and ready for action, though!**

**YES, yes. It gets a little lovey and gushy in this chapter. Don't worry, just a bit of boy-crazy Mabel. **Note it won't last for more than a few paragraphs.** It's annoying me just to read over it, but I feel it's necessary to get the story where I want it to be. I'm sorry...**

_**PREVIOUSLY (decided I would do this again...)**_

_Danny knew one thing... He was going to find out more about this weird town before anything else._

Once Mabel and her Asian friend reunited with a more masculine female (I think?) figure, they went off to do... well, whatever girls do. Danny took the time to study the town and gather his thoughts. Now that his hunger and sleep requirements were filled, he was ready to face the challenges that Clockwork sent him to overcome. He soared throughout the town in his intangible form. Meanwhile, Candy, Grenda, and Mabel were talking about Mabel's new boy.

"Mabel, how old is he?" Candy said, giggling and readjusting her glasses. "His raven hair is very fluffy and bouncy."

"Well, ladies..." Mabel's braces pressed against the inside of her mouth. She couldn't help but let a grin out.

"Details! Details!" Grenda pounded her fists on the table and her eyes slowly rotated away from each other in an insane Old Man McGucket fashion.

The brunette hugged herself in her sweater, not being able to hold in her feelings. Her boycraziness.. Her instincts were turning her upside down! Sure, whatever affections being felt were temporary and being completely swayed by her hormones. Perhaps she felt like puking, yeah, but man, was she falling head over heels for this boy! Something about him... "Well," Mabel tried to begin, except she didn't know where to start. The rush of tween emotion was swooping her off her feet! "He's fourteen," she stated, answering Grenda's simple question. "He's funny and dreamy and... and..." Mabel droned on for as long as her little heart pleaded.

Danny was floating around town in is alter-ego white-and-green fighting machine form (sorry for the name... just popped into my head. forgive me pls). Momentarily, he had forgotten about his triangular stalker. Bill had other places to be, though. Things were falling in place quite nicely for his plan to gain a physical body and drag everyone else into his place. Nobody to stop him, either. That was the beauty of being a spirit. Nothing was too weird about the town, excluding Bill. Things were actually peaceful and quiet. The townsfolk were walking around, dumbly and ignorantly going about their daily lives. It made him smile: peace. The word, the feeling, and especially, the sight of a safe town. No ghosts attacked since Skulker. 1 in 2 days? That was a new record for the ghost child. Danny was happy, but a nagging feeling was tugging at his brain. Whatever racked his brain increased as he approached the forest. The eerie feeling wasn't quite setting off his ghost sense yet. He decided to finish his patrol on the town, coming up to a Dusk-2-Dawn. _Better to avoid the woods, for now. My only ally so far is a little girl. Great. _Right when Danny thought he was done, a light blue wisp came from his ice core and up through his mouth. _Right on cue... _

"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." Danny said, wanting to get this little brawl over with. His trusty thermos was already in his hands and his butt was ready to fly away from the creepy forest. Back at the Mystery Shack, he already had been given a feeling of someone watching him. Why was it stronger here? An elderly couple materialized from the ceiling and the place flipped over. The halfa was already intangible, so the products from the store harmlessly passed through him. He was not amused. For once, there was an actual mission at hand and the entire world, no, dimensions, were really at stake. Time to stop messing around! This was a quick and easy job, and Danny could definitely handle it.

"Well, hello there," an old woman said, floating mid-air. She didn't attack, primarily because Danny hadn't shown any signs of being a rowdy teenager. They looked like a happy couple. The boy considered halting his attack, since he was supposed to be making allies and the most imminent threat at the current moment was Bill. She actually reminded him of the Lunch ghost. After all, she had only been upset because Sam changed the menu. No conflict if Danny stayed out of things, right?

"Ho, ho, ho, mister, you've seemed to stumble right into our store," her husband informed the young phantom. Ma and Pa weren't too concerned about ghosts, since they weren't technically teenagers in their eyes. All ghosts were ageless.

"Sorry, um, you wouldn't happen to be causing trouble to this city, right?" Danny shyly asked. It never hurt to make sure. Usually, when ghosts wanted to rule, they'd announce it to the world. These two just wanted to rule the abandoned inconvenience store.

"Causing trouble? Are those darn teenagers reeking havoc upon the city again... Darn rap music and sarcasm..." Pa growled and burst into flames. "Not if I have anything to say about it!"

Danny didn't like where this was going, but kept his mind set on making allies. "No! No, no. The town is fine. I guess I'll be on my way-" He paused as the door to the shop dinged open. Dipper walked in, furiously flipping the pages in a book. Pa cooled his fire down.

"Ma, Pa, do you think you could help me with..."

"Face us when you speak to us!" Ma directed.

Dipper sighed, straightened his spine, and looked up at the two ghosts. "Sorry," he mumbled. Danny had freaked and gone invisible the second his acquaintance walked in the door. As for why the young boy was in there, it was because of Skulker. (since this is before Northwest Mansion stuff...) Ghosts were still fairly new to him. The elders were on good terms with him ever since the Lamby Lamb incident. "I just need your help with ghosts."

"Funny. This lad just came to-" Pa scratched his head. "There was a ghost here just a second ago."

"How rude to leave without saying anything," Ma added.

"A-Another ghost? Where?" Dipper looked around cautiously, searching for any other ecto-activity.

"He was just here a minute ago," Pa said. He thought for a moment. "Must've ran off. He seemed to be concerned about the town's well-being. How rude, running off without a goodbye..."

"Did he show any powers? What did he look like?" Dipper flipped through the pages in the Journal, wondering what category this new ghost would fall under.

"Well... He had green eyes and white hair. There was a D with a P inside of it stamped in his chest." Dipper's heart sank. _DP. DP. White hair, green eyes. Oh man. Abuelita had told little Soos a real legend... It said he was a hero... Hero of what, exactly? _For there to be a hero, there had to be a fall. He realized this quite quickly. Possibilities raced through his mind. A new case... "He was actually quite peaceful and on the lookout for any troublemakers. I told him about teenagers and he seemed to be less concerned. It was also weird that his skin was human colore-" _Drat. No powers. I can't categorize him yet. I need to get out of here... That's all they know._

"-I uh... Thanks! Bye!" Dipper burst out. He raced out the door, keeping a close hand on his journal. He had intended to be more sincere in his leaving, but his brain was frazzled yet buzzed. The couple waved at him as he exited. DP.. What could this mean? Something huge was happening right under his nose, and he didn't even have anything close to a lead... Speaking of things happening right under his nose...

Stan had mixed feelings about the new kid. He made his great niece happy, which admittedly pleased him. The twins had become a bigger part of his life than he would have ever imagined. On the other hand, more people meant more trouble, and his plans couldn't allow it. He slipped his brother's six-fingered glove over his hand and continued to monitor his greatest work. "You're worrying about nothing, Stan..." he spoke to himself in the spacious room. His voice echoed back.

Danny had ventured into the forest with a sandwich he had snatched from someone's lunch bag. He figured that it was for the greater good to steal, even though he considered it as payment for saving everyone. What else was he supposed to do? 14 year old boys were broke. The forest challenged him with a weird, shivery feeling. His ghost sense felt like it was withdrawing from whatever was around. To be honest, it was pretty spooky. Despite the minor fear he felt, Danny faced it and sat on a rock. He didn't feel the need to be invisible, although he knew in a fight Phantom would always prevail. Like a boy scout, he had to always be ready. There was just this weird feeling of being... watched and observed. Maybe it was Clockwork? He was probably watching him every step of the way. It wasn't a feeling like that, though. Something was near him. He just knew it.

Danny jumped into the air and turned invisible. The second he turned invisible, a yellow triangular form appeared right in his face. A confused yelp went into the air. Bill had lost track of his prey! But how? Danny looked at him, just a tad worried and a lot angry. He was being watched? That was enough to tick the half-human, half-ghost off. This meant war. He shot a powerful, green ray at his stalker, throwing him back against a tree. For a moment, he stopped himself. Why couldn't he see the figure before? Danny only saw him when he went... _I wonder... _He turned visible once again. Bill disappeared from sight! Great. For once, someone had an advantage over Bill that rarely anyone else held: the element of surprise. Quite pleased with himself, the halfa turned back invisible. "And I thought Vlad was weird..."

Frustrated at the situation, Bill retreated into the woods. If he couldn't see the glowing child, there was no point fighting. He was too smart to stick around and take anymore hits. _Huh, _Danny wondered as he floated away. _I'd better change back while I still have the chance. I'd probably be better in this town as a human._

Danny was eventually back in the main Gravity Falls plaza. He spotted the diner he ate at previously and a few poorly painted signs pointing to the Mystery Shack. There were other unimportant buildings, yes, like any other place. He looked for similarities between Amity Park and for strong could-be allies. _This isn't going to be easy... Wait, he can't even see me. _He cracked a cocky grin. _Hey... Hey. Remember, Clockwork said you needed allies. Don't stray too far away from his words. _Eventually, Danny bumped into a familiar face.

"Danny!" Mabel played with her hair until it swayed just right. She grabbed her sky blue sweater and stared brightly into Danny's icy blue eyes. The two talked and made their way back to the Mystery Shack. Everything Mabel told the ghost would be handy, since he was as confused as Helen Keller when she was learning how to do read brail (going to Hell for that very low-key dissing Helen Keller). He prayed that something important would come up that would help him defeat Bill. It was about 8 PM. The day hadn't been wasted so far. The two walked up to the twins' shared attic, where Dipper was madly pacing around in a line with a clipboard in his hand.

"Hey, what do you have there?" Danny asked, genuinely curious.

"N-Nothing!" The hairless child forced the notes to his chest. The older 14 year old shrugged it off.

**Ooooh. Spooky ending place, I know.**

**AGAIN, I am so sorry for the lack of posts, but I have my account now. Thank you for reading, and as always, your reviews are always appreciated! I'll work on responding to them again!**


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm in the mood to write. I mean, I always am, but more than EVER right now. The Danny Phantom is theme song running through my head. Just gonna hop into this story. Enjoy, favorite (If you like it), review, blah blah blah.**

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_The two walked up to the twins' shared attic, where Dipper was madly pacing around in a line with a clipboard in his hand._

_"Hey, what do you have there?" Danny asked, genuinely curious._

_"N-Nothing!" The 'hairless child' forced the notes to his chest. The older 14 year old shrugged it off._

It was just a kid, after all. Danny didn't like to meddle in others' private life. Jazz did enough of that for him, and not to mention he had secrets of his own to keep. The more he snooped, the more suspicious he became. At least, that was his theory. Dipper was grateful; all of his notes were scribbles and nonsensical. When he finally revealed his studies to his sister, and anyone else who would listen, he at least wanted them to think of him as a genius. There was no brilliance located on his current paper. In fact, it was just all Ma had told him. He didn't have any evidence of anything. Dipper had no clue where to begin! His current board, with pins located all over with yarn and pictures connecting to each other, was all he had in the way of mysteries. It looked pretty impressive, at least he thought. Maybe it was a bit disorganized from the eleven different cases he was working on, but it proved how hardworking he was. With a sigh, Dip decided it was time to take down less crucial cases. He didn't trust Danny, though, and didn't want to seem like he wasn't smart enough to figure them out. This all took place in about 25 seconds of deciding things. Danny and Dipper had just been staring at each other the entire time, except the difference was that the half-ghost was conscience of his thoughts and feeling awkward, while Dipper was just normally sweaty.

"Soooo," Mabel said, breaking the silence. Her brother snapped out of his thoughts, laughing like how he used to laugh around Wendy. "Are you going to sleep over tonight?" Her eyes beamed with hope and joy. _When he falls asleep, I can snap pics of him sleeping... _She giggled like the little schoolgirl she was.

"Uh," Danny replied shortly, a bit unsettled by her giggle, "Sure." _I'll sneak out after the two go to bed... Or, I'll fall asleep. If Bill contacts me, it's all the better and my job is made slightly easier. _Even though he _wanted _a full night's rest, he'd pulled all-nighters more recently ever since more powerful ghosts had begun attacking. Vlad only made matters worse; any day he could strike his attack to turn the entire world upside down.

Dipper coughed in the corner, "*cough*MABEL*COUGH COUGH*." Mabel, puzzled to whatever he might want at that exact moment, cocked her head to the side in a confused manor. Angrily, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her out the door.

"UhberightbackDannyhehheh," she called on her way out. Once the door was shut, Mabel glared daggers at her twin. "What the heck, bro bro?! The adults were talking!"

"Mabel, there's a new case I need to tell you about-" Dipper started, but was immediately cut off.

"Not this, again!" Infuriated, Mabel's patience was slowly starting to dwindle.

"No! You don't understand-"

Meanwhile, Danny turned invisible for a moment, checking if Bill was there. He prayed that he wasn't, otherwise he would put together the connection between Danny Phantom and Danny Fenton. Bill was not your ordinary Dorito chip. If he noticed any connections, Danny guessed that he wasn't going to be left alone. Mid-invisibility, he noticed the fault in his plan. Obviously, he wasn't going to appear human if someone else was watching. _Screw it, _he thought. Bill wasn't in the room, lucky for him. He was in the hallway. Dipper had lured him out with his new case idea. The gears were still turning in the insane demon's mind that whatever Dipper found to be so urgent may concern him... Without anybody or thing in sight, Fenton transformed.

"-..." Dipper stopped his sentence once some light flashed under the door. "Did... you see that?" Mabel had been caught up in opposing whatever he was saying, but she slowly nodded. "I'm... going to open the door." Danny overheard with his enhanced hearing (He had been listening to the conversation, but just blocking it out of his head. Bill was more of a worry to him. Speaking of Bill...). Bill, floating overhead the twins, turned his head towards the door. He floated through, seeing Phantom. In an instant, he was gone! He had turned invisible to humans and, apparently, mind demons. The triangle growled. Now, he was the one being watched, and he knew it. Dipper and Mabel walked in, the female ready to fire her grappling hook. To their amazement, nobody was there! Danny seemed to be missing, too. Before they could realize much, Danny noticed his fault and blasted the window. It shattered from the beam of green ectoplasmic energy. It was in an effort to maybe cause them to think that he had jumped out the window, even though it was literally the worst plan ever. "What the-" Dipper was cut off by Bill's scream. He had been blasted, as a distraction. "...Was that... Bill?" Now he was feeling his sister's frustration and anger, mainly because it annoyed him to not know what was going on.

"M-Maybe it was a slight power outage...?" Mabel asked, well-knowing that they did not have actual electricity in the attic. She was now completely on the same page as her brother, even though she had no clue what Dipper had been about to say in the hallway. Even though she was freaked, she kept her optimism. She honestly didn't care. Bill always meant bad news. Dipper whipped out his journal. Danny paused for a moment - he recognized the book. When Skulker had paid them a surprise visit, (he still had _no _clue how he had traveled into this dimension) that was what the spell was cast from._ I've got to get a hold of that book... I'll just borrow it for a few minutes to see what it's all about... _Heh. Famous last words, or rather, famous lies. This thing was complicated, but it may just have the answers on how to beat Bill. Danny was sure that the kid wouldn't miss it for too long...

"Wait a second..." Dipper thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "I have a video camera set up to monitor us in our sleep."

"Can you spell 'creepy?'" Mabel asked disapprovingly.

He rolled his eyes. "It's to prove my theory that we're being watched... What Soos explained to me when I first came here, about needing actual evidence. This was one of my biggest theories. I can't say I'm being watched if I can't prove it. That's besides the point! Whatever was on this video camera can reveal what happened." Danny did not like the sounds of that. Panicked, he blasted the video camera. He wasn't visible, but the ray he shot was. Dipper and Mabel instinctively jumped onto their beds for cover. Dip grabbed a metallic trash can lid he snatched in case of emergencies. _Heh, and Mabel said this thing was just a piece of garbage... _"Who's there?" The halfa shot a green ray from his finger at the oil lamp. The room wasn't completely dark, though. It was about 8:30PM and the sun was barely setting, and there was a full moon that night. Mabel shrieked, aiming her grappling hook outwards. The fourteen year old, who was getting almost straight C's (he had a B+ in science), thought it was a good idea to swoop in for the journal. And so, he did. Turning only his hand intangible, he rushed forward at Dipper and threw his hand into his vest. After reaching around for a moment, his plan proved successful as he retrieved the journal. But of course, a nearly straight C student couldn't have had that good of luck. Also, that would be bad story progression.

Dipper, feeling an unfamiliar chill from the ghost reaching inside of him, pounded the trash can lid forward straight at Danny's forehead. Only his hand had been intangible for a quick in, quick out mission. His layer of invisibility fell. Since it was a simple attack, it didn't cause any other transformations. For once, Mabel was quick to think. Her battery-powered disco ball she had installed a week prior lit up with the press of a button. Recovering very quickly, Danny jumped up, but froze in shock. It wasn't as bad as when he had been on stage and the entire world had discovered his secret when Freak Show took over, but it was the same kind of impulse. Funny how Mabel and Dipper were the ones who fell back into place and began the Q&amp;A session. Mabel would interview while Dip stuttered, sweat, and pieced together the puzzle.

"Who are you?! Why was Bill here? Are you working for Bill? Why is our window broken? What was that green ray? Can I get one? What are you? Do you like stuffed animals and glitter? Why did you break our lamp?" Mabel quickly went over the basic questions.

Dipper took off his hat and snapped a picture with a spare camera he kept underneath it. This was for no contest, but for his own research. Danny, who was being bombarded with questions, didn't notice since there was no flash or noise.

"D...DP! Green eyes, white hair..." This was the ghost Soos had told him about! The power that's insane, fists like steel.. His fists were covered with silver gloves, and his power seemed pretty crazy. Funny, because Dipper didn't know the half of what Danny could do. "Save us all... Why are you here? What are you saving us from? DP? What does DP mean?" Dipper reached for his journal. When his fingers started flipping through pages, he realized he couldn't feel anything. "Thief! Mabel, he stole my journal!" That shut his sister right up.

"I... uhhh..." The journal laid in Danny's hands. _I'm stealing... I've been framed so many times for stealing, and this time it's the actual thing... I'm sorry, Dipper. I'll get this back to you. _He shut his eyes. "I promise," he ended his thought out loud, turning intangible and flying through the roof. If he was going to pull off his little 'trick', that would involve him being on the edge of the roof, or on the ground outside the window. In retrospect, that was probably the most horrible idea in existence. _Dan... _Danny shivered at the name of his older self, _stuffed the time amulet inside of me, but I had ghost organs. I don't think I can put this inside of me with human parts. Plus, I don't want to get this all gooey. Where do I put the journal...? _Obviously, he couldn't just walk back into the house with Dipper's journal. The kid seemed smart enough to put it together. Plus, his sister probably did some pretty hardcore stalking and would spot something off. Danny searched for a good hiding place and found one within a matter of seconds. Under the floorboards on the front porch! Before he went to put it under, he turned invisible to make sure Bill was nowhere near. Only, he was. _Doesn't matter. I don't think he can see me when I'm invisible. _He phased the journal under the wooden planks and went inside, pretending to gasp and be out of breath. Much like a cat, Danny rubbed up against the rough wall to create scratches like something had happened. Once he got back up to the attic, he was so worried something was about to go wrong. "G-guys..." He said to the twins, who had been mid-conversation. They looked at him. "Th-that was... insane..." His lip was trembling.

"What happened?" asked Dipper, raising an eyebrow up.

"Are you okay?!" Mabel rushed in her question the second Dipper stopped speaking-no, while Dipper was still speaking. Even if it was a few cheap seconds, Danny had just bought a bit of extra time to perfect his excuse. He had become pretty good at... oh no. His heart sunk. _I've become better and better at lying... If I'm supposed to be the good guy... Hmmph. _That made him a bit sad, but he couldn't worry about that now. Clockwork had specifically instructed him to let nobody find out.

"I'm good, I'm all good." Before Dipper could restate his question, Danny leaned against the wall and fell down. He sat at the base of the wall, eyes half-shut and head beginning to lean to the side. "I'm... alll..."

Mabel gasped in horror. "Danny, no! You're not okay! Dipper, go get some cool water."

"N-no... I'm fine..." He got up, yawning. "Just.. I need to go to bed."

"I'll help you! Couch? Is the couch okay?" She facepalmed. "Silly me! You can sleep on my bed, I'll sleep on the couch!" Dipper and Danny exchanged looks of distrust. Before anybody could argue, Mabel sealed the deal. "Okay! Hope you like stuffed animals!" She helped him onto her bed, took her favorite stuffed animals and an extra blanket, and went downstairs. It was almost 9, but everyone had decided it was good to call it night. Everyone except Dipper. His mind was racing too fast to fall asleep! Once Mabel left the room, Danny sat on the bed and stared at Dipper. Dip was taking notes on his clipboard, sitting parallel to Danny, and occasionally looking up. He was uneasy with the idea of being watched. Whilst writing notes, he broke more pens than usual. _UGH. He took.. THE JOURNAL. _The pens were feeling Dipper's wrath that Phantom had caused. This was going to be a fun sleepover.

**Goodnight, folks. Hope you like it. Any suggestions? I'm all ears, as always.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Another day, another chapter. Enjoy. As always, feel free to review and maybe even favorite. Read on.**

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_Once Mabel left the room, Danny sat on the bed and stared at Dipper. Dip was taking notes on his clipboard, sitting parallel to Danny, and occasionally looking up. He was uneasy with the idea of being watched. Whilst writing notes, he broke more pens than usual. UGH. He took.. THE JOURNAL. The pens were feeling Dipper's wrath that Phantom had caused. This was going to be a fun sleepover._

**_One thing I forgot to mention last chapter was that he transformed back. Oopsiedoosles._**

Dipper was steaming mad at DP, whatever that stood for. He was supposed to be a hero... but he was a thief! He broke the fourth pen in a row for the past few minutes. Danny sniffled, his inner-thoughts deeply troubling him. Mainly, he was just thinking of how hurt and frustrated the kid must be. Again, he had been failing his mission. Losing possible allies instead of making them. The fake hurt show he was putting on began to fade, but Dip was paying no attention. _I should comfort him... It's the least I could do. He seems mad. _"Hey, Dipper," Danny calmly walked over to the 12 year old and sat next to him on the bed. He didn't notice the child's eyes had turned completely white. Soothingly, he spoke to the ticked off boy. "It's alright, man."

_Meanwhile, in Dipper's mind..._

"Kid, kid, it's alright." Bill chuckled at Pine Tree's mind-human form pacing around in his realm. _Time to make a deal..._

"No! Shut up, Bill!" Dipper responded to the mind demon, who was seriously not helping. "Leave me alone! Get out of my mind... I just need to think..." The two were surrounded by a red sky on a surface that looked like a desert mixed with laser tag. He stomped into the clay-like ground, his harsh steps being absorbed with each anger-filled foot that dug into the ground. The more his frustration grew, the hotter it got. "I-B-Lea...Guhhh!" He wasn't making any sense of his thoughts.

"Geesh, kid, you're overheating the terrain," Bill commented on the temperature slowly rising past 100 degrees. "Look, I know why you're mad, and I can-"

"You can't help me! You're evil, and don't try to deny it!" Dipper's knuckles glowed white from tightening them so much. His teeth ground together. "Leave me alone, you're only making things worse!" He had lost the journal to someone he had never even seen before. No clues where to find DP, nothing! At least when Stan and Gideon had the journals, he had known who they were and where to find them. Now, it could be lost forever to the fiend.

"I want to make a deal that can benefit both sides..." The blue fire sparking around his hand was fairly noticeable in the warm colors.

"Enough!" Dipper screamed, flustered. The entire canvas went blank, and it was about the same moment as in "Dreamscapers" when Bill had quite enough. Dipper was past that point, and since this was his own mind, it was his control. Bill curiously looked around. The room didn't lose its 110 temperature. A thermometer formed in Bill's hand, quickly rising to the top and breaking the glass in a cartoon sort of way. The mercury floated for a moment, then disappeared.

"Pine Tree, you're breaking the thermometer!" The scene shifted back to the desert, but the sky was a normal color and grass was beginning to grow. Things Dipper was interested in (ex. the journals, video games, Wendy) began to form around them in pictures. Memories started showing all over the place. "There we go, cool it down..."

"Fine, let's make this quick." The boy exhaled slowly. "Whatever you want Bill, the answer is no. Not in the mood."

_Drat, I was hoping he would be too blinded by his wrath against 'DP'... _"You haven't let me propose my offer. That's not good manners."

"_You're _not good manners. Leave me alone."

"You may want to listen..." As Bill said this, his ear expanded and his voice deepened for effect. Dipper cut him off.

"I'm exhausted and five seconds away from beating up the next person I see. Although, I'm sure you know that. You target people at their weakest times, don't you?"

"My, my, isn't someone learning?" Bill cackled. "I'd like to see you beat up someone."

"I beat up Gideon!" Dipper growled, remembering defending himself against the psychotic child.

"Ah, yes, that _kid... _He's in jail right now." The demon's eye flashed to a live feed of Gideon trying to dig his way out with a spoon, then getting caught by a very angry and betrayed prison guard.

"Just let me go back to reality, I don't have time for your games. My journa-" Dipper covered his mouth.

"Ho ho ho? Has little Pine Tree lost his journal? What a shame. Guess I'll just have to find it for him," Bill said in a mocking tone, reading his thoughts.

"What?! No, you better no-" Dipper watched his beautiful mindscape fade away into nothing, until he finally woke up in a cold sweat.

_Back to real life..._

Approximately 11:23 PM. Danny had fallen asleep on the bed. Dipper looked behind him at the sleeping teenager and growled. Great. Just what he needed: a stranger getting his sheets all messy. He looked around his room and found the Fun Stick. Although he could have sworn that Mabel threw it out when he requested, she probably had just gotten another one. "Wakey, wakey..." Dipper poked Danny with the stick.

"Jazz, just five more minutes..." Danny moaned, sleepily opening his eyes. He had given up on comforting Dipper long ago and figured he could use all the sleep he could get.

"Who's Jazz?" Dipper asked, genuinely curious.

"What?" _Oh... _Danny sat up. "She's my sister."

"You have a sister?"

"Yes."

"Huh." Dipper noted this and wondered what else he didn't know about his 'subject,' although since Danny Phantom came into the mix, he was growing less and less concerned about Danny Fenton. Little did he know they were one and the same.

"Well, you have a sister, don't you? You're twins. Except Mabel told me that she was older than you."

"By five minutes!" Dipper exclaimed, his cheeks tinting a reddish color. "Where is your sister right now? Were you guys on a family vacation, or...?"

"Uhh..." _Lying and stealing... _Danny thought about everything he had done so far. It made him sad as a superhero to perform with such dishonor, so he decided he would dance around the truth. He thought that wasn't as bad. On a daily basis he had to lie to the entire world about his identity, and each time it killed him. "She's at home right now." There wasn't much of an excuse he was thinking up, so he decided to end his sentence there.

"How did you end up here?" Dipper was suddenly getting more interested in Fenton's story. He had placed aside all his questions when he heard Soos' legend and it began to come true, but he couldn't investigate the phantom right now. _Might as well learn Danny's background, I guess, _he thought.

_Crap... _Danny quickly imagined any way he could end up in this weird town, but it was hard. He had only been here for a few days and was never very good with geography. One mistake he made was judging Dipper. He thought that he was a scared little kid, so Danny figured might as well spook him off. "It's a real long story. Just warning you: if you want to go to bed, tonight isn't a good night to do so."

"The quicker you tell it, the faster we can sleep." Dipper could tell that Danny didn't want to tell him something, and was already prepared to find flaws in his story. He would make a good Phoenix Wright, no?

"Well..." Danny paused for a moment in thought. "I got lost in the woods-"

"Lost? And you didn't try to find your way back?"

"-and came in search of help. We were attacked, by a huge beast." Dipper mouthed a curse word. He was thinking about how he could have searched for the monster in his journal... DP may have been a good guy, but he was going to pay.

"We?"

"My parents and I. Jack and Maddie Fenton."

"Hold up. Does Fenton start with a F or a Ph?" _Danny Phenton, maybe? DP?_

"It starts with a F. Fenton." When Danny said this, he emphasized the F in his last name. _Drat, _Dipper thought to himself. _So close. _"May I continue my story?" The boy nodded. "Thank you. A big, purple beast covered in hair. My parents are ghost hunters and mistook it for a ghost. They tried to suck it in with the thermos I used on that monster a few days ago, when we first met." Dipper remembered their first encounter. "Once that proved in failure..." Out of nowhere, an idea hit Danny like a brick to the head. This was the perfect chance to throw Bill, who was probably listening, and the twins off his intangible tail. "...This maniac came in. He had these weird eyes and he was levitating off the ground. When he told us to run, my parents were stubborn. I'm not quite sure where they are now, but I hope they're alright."

"What?! Describe him."

"Green eyes, silver hair, and a pretty fashionable hazmat suit. I glanced back once or twice, and the huge beast was being defeated. Our eyes locked, though, and he yelled at me to run. So I did, and here I am now." Danny felt good about that story. It was pretty solid, he felt. The next moment in his life was going to help him understand Dipper more: whether he said anything about meeting the same phantom or blew past that sentence.

"Let's go out into the woods first thing tomorrow, to see if we can find that monster." Dipper completely skipped over his knowledge of the ghost. He was always up for a monster hunt, but this time, he knew what he was hunting for. Yes, he was looking for whatever could have possibly eaten Danny's parents or put them in great danger, but primarily DP. Looks like no matter wherever poor Phantom went, he always was Public Enemy #1. "Now that wasn't that long of a story, was it? Why didn't you tell it before?"

Danny stared down at his feet, which were lying across the bed. "I... I left my parents out in the woods because I was scared. That wasn't a cool thing to do. It was really nice of you to let me stay here, but I'll probably be leaving soon."

"No, man... Ugh. Stay as long as you want. Sorry I've been kind of weird around you lately. Hey, do you ever get a creepy feeling from the forest, like someone is watching you?"

Danny perked up. "Actually, yes."

"No way! Barely anyone ever feels that way... I have a lot of..." _Don't blow this, Dip. He might be willing to help you. Then again... he's not a freak. _Oh, how little the boy actually knew, though. "...conspiracy theories," he whispered. "IF you want to investigate some things. It would help you find your parents!"

"B-b-back in those woods? That monster was scary, dude. I don't want to deal with it again."

"C'mon, you feel guilty about your mom and dad already. Let's go find them! I can bring my crew. Don't worry, we're pretty close to professional paranormal investigators." Dipper liked the title 'Paranormal Investigator.' Technically, he wasn't a real one, but he liked to think he was being steered in the right direction.

"Nuh uh." Time for stubborn Danny to come out.

"Don't be a wimp... These are your parents! Plus, you know where to find them. I can't complete the mission without you."

Time for stubborn Danny to fade away. He didn't like to be called a wimp, especially when he had risked everything on multiple occasions to save everyone. He definitely was far from being a chicken. "Fine. I'll come." _I'll steer them in the wrong direction... _The only problem was that Danny wouldn't know exactly where he was going to lead them. The forest was a mysterious place, and he didn't have Sam or Tucker there to save him like back when he was first about to enter and explore the ghost zone.

"I will tell Mabel tomorrow morning. We'll see if we can get Soos and Wendy off work."

"Then it's settled? We're off to find my parents?" _I can't afford to waste time. This is for getting allies and learning my surroundings. _Dipper nodded. "Thanks, man."

**G'night. Tell me what you thought, rate, blah blah blah.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Well, would you look at who finally decided to update!**

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_"Fine. I'll come." I'll steer them in the wrong direction... The only problem was that Danny wouldn't know exactly where he was going to lead them. The forest was a mysterious place, and he didn't have Sam or Tucker there to save him like back when he was first about to enter and explore the ghost zone._

_"I will tell Mabel tomorrow morning. We'll see if we can get Soos and Wendy off work."_

_"Then it's settled? We're off to find my parents?" I can't afford to waste time. This is for getting allies and learning my surroundings. Dipper nodded. "Thanks, man."_

And so it was done. Dipper, Mabel, Wendy, Soos, and Danny set off in the woods. Half the summer ago, the twins would have been scared out of their minds. Now, Dipper strutted with pride and Mabel skipped with wonder in her eyes. The conspiracies bothered her sometimes, but she knew that these studies were important to her brother. Plus, it gave her a chance to meet to people of the town~primarily boys. Danny still hated the sound of this town and the paranormal activity. He rarely encountered anything except ghosts. Dipper was still very mixed up and confused about what had occurred when Skulker had arrived. Danny just shook it off, thinking the kid would do likewise. Wendy, Soos, and Mabel were casually chatting, like a couple of friends would. Danny and Dipper stood at the front of the group, navigating where to where the 'monster' was.

"Hey, Dipper, do you have a map of these woods...?" Danny asked, getting the chills from the forest. It wasn't his ghost sense, just his common sense. Also, he could have sworn he had seen various colored eyes blinking throughout the bushes. This wasn't where he wanted to get trapped. _I don't intend on sharing my secrets with these guys... Especially with that book. Whatever Dipper did to Skulker seriously gave me a weird vibe. I don't want to get cursed... _

"There's been enough mysteries in the town for me to solve..." Dipper was working on a map of the forest. He had sections done, but nothing that anybody could really go by. The only parts he completed were bits and pieces put together from the journal. The only problem was that he had doodled it in on a blank page of the journal, which was lost to him. Danny prayed that Bill still had no clue where it was.

"So that's a no?" Danny ground his teeth together for a second, an indication that something was wrong. Mabel had been half-staring at her crush of the week her entire talk with Wendy and Soos. As the hyper stalker tween she was, she noticed. The girl jumped between her twin and Danny.

"What's wrong, Dan?"

Danny stopped for a second and shuddered... Dan... His alternate self, in another dimension. That had been his first encounter with Clockwork. Not only had his friends and family been saved, but he had the chance to redeem himself with the exam answers.

"...Danny? Hello?" Mabel waved her hand in his face.

"It's Danny," he replied, quietly.

"What did I say?" Her pink cheeks increased in color, to more of a cherry pigment. _I didn't mean to offend anyone... Sorry. You're really hot._

"You said Dan. It's.. Not a big deal. I'm not Dan, though. Or Daniel." Danny hated it when Vlad called him Daniel. "Just.. Danny."

The whole group was awkwardly silent. Wendy decided to speak up. "You lost me, man." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Uhh..." Before Danny could think of anything to compensate for what he had said, his ghost sense escaped his mouth. _Uh oh. _Usually, it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but everyone was just very awkwardly staring at the boy.

"What was-" Dipper started, before a beam shot at him. Mabel tackled him out of the way. The tree that had been behind him had a nice sized hole in it now, which, by the way, was still sizzling from the attack. Danny got in his fighting pose, instinctively, but remembered he couldn't transform. Clockwork had told him not to reveal his secret! So, he got his thermos out. Much to his dismay, the enemy floating above the group was hardly containable.

"Plasmius!" Danny shouted in disbelief. He uncapped his thermos and aimed it towards him, before they could share insults, but it was just knocked from his hand by a simple plasma finger ray. The button clicked, releasing Skulker. Dipper swore to himself for being so dumb to let DP steal his journal. _Where did he come from?! _Danny wondered, knowing he hadn't noticed a ghost portal leading here.

"Plasmius?!" Mabel asked. She screamed and ducked when Skulker shot at her head. "Y-You know these guys?!"

"Now, now... Skulker, we only want to talk to young Daniel," Vlad said with a cocky tone. The group noted how there was no defiance to his name when the floating creep said it.

"Fine. Ghost child, your pelt will be mine another day," Skulker said, very disappointed. There were a few 'ews' and shudders throughout the four humans.

"What is it, Vlad?" Danny figured he might as well figure out what Vlad's demands were, since he was clearly outmatched as a human. His friends, for the most part, were a little frozen in place. All their movements were slow and awkward, and the only lines of speech were short and stuttered.

"Actually, I've been hired." Vlad smiled as a wicked laugh rang out behind him. Bill Cipher appeared. The nice forest scenery faded to grey scale colors.

"Well, well. I knew you were something weird, but who knew you were the only thing standing in my way?" Bill laughed again. His plans were going to continue on just as well as they were before this obstacle.

"D-Danny? What.. what is he t-talking about?" Mabel asked, nearly in tears.

"How d-do you know these guys?" Dipper spat out, after a minute of trying to remember advice from the journal. "...Plans... What are you up to, Bill?"

"Pelt? Isn't that like... a dead animal rug...? Dude... That's..." Soos paused for a moment in thought. "...kind of gross."

Wendy had never actually seen the Dorito man, and was just kind of freaked out. Her laid back appearance disappeared to nothing. She was backed up against a tree, heavily breathing. This went past anything any of them knew about. The 15 year old was typically one to act, but anything she did in this situation could result in her death, for all she knew. So, she stayed silent.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Pine Tree! Hahaha!" Bill pointed to Danny. "I'll fulfill my end of the bargain when you do your part."

"G-G...G-..." Danny couldn't just show his secret in front of his new allies! "Going..." _What do I do? __I could save a life, but they're after me. I can't let them take me either... Grrr. There's not enough time! Why me? Why did Clockwork need me, out of all people...? _He silently thought over his enemies. "Going... to have to tell you guys to run!"

"What?!" Mabel screeched, scared to death.

"No!" Dipper growled, trying to recall a chant from the journal. "Bill's here! This is my fight, too!"

"Hahaha. You guys really are dumb! Fine, hit me with your best shot!" The animated triangle closed its eye and put its arm in a free-to-the-side position, freeing anyone who wanted to hit him to do so. Dipper mumbled something to himself. There wasn't anything he could do here, either! Ever since they had gone to Gravity Falls, he had sort of been the main leader of the pack and the brains of the operation. Now, it was all up to Danny. He was investing his trust in a 14 year old he knew nothing about, except that something about him was definitely off. Maybe he knew something he wasn't supposed to, or was secretly a supernatural creature?... That would explain Mabel's attraction to him.

"I know you're one for witty banter, my boy, but I'm afraid there isn't much time for that today!" Vlad shouted, grabbing Danny by his neck with both of his hands. The teenager fought and squirmed, but it was no use. "Skulker, I will award you with the child if you take care of the others." Skulker nodded and looked through his weapon selection, deciding what fate the humans would meet. Meanwhile, Bill sat back and watched. The adult halfa continued to choke Daniel, and began to say his farewell speech. "It's been fun, but all this time you've been a thorn in my side..." He continued his words.

_I can't... let them know my secret... _Danny tried pushing away from Plasmius, but nothing happened.

Dipper noticed something in Danny's bag... A weapon? He dragged it out and held it. It was heavy enough... But that didn't matter right now! _A gun! _Dipper thought. He aimed it at the ghost they had called 'Skulker,' only to find a gun of the ghost's own was aimed directly at him. If one shot, the other would, too.

Danny groaned... Their lives were all in danger. He knew what he had to do. "G-...going ghost!" He managed to spit out, starting to get a serious headache. The two rings formed around his waist, slowly making their way upwards and downwards. The gang noticed the brilliant flash of light and turned to look. Unfortunately, that meant Dipper lost his aim and got hit by Skulker. The gun mostly blocked the shot, but the kid was still plenty scratched up, and their only defense was now broken.

"Dipper!" Mabel snapped her attention away from Danny, rushing to her brother's aide. Dipper was still conscious. She felt his heart beat and sighed with relief.

Danny put his hands, one on top of another, at Vlad's chest and forced his ectoplasmic power through as powerful as it would go. The elder half-ghost went flying, crying out in confusion. Skulker aimed at Danny, only to meet a ray to the face. He stood in front of the group , who was still mostly frozen by the events, or attending to Dipper's wounds. Skulker and Vlad hovered off of the ground in front of Danny, with Bill flying way above them, sort of in a triangle formation. I guess Cipher liked it that way.

"Grr!" Vlad shouted in frustration, aiming two plasma balls at the group of five. He split up into six more beings, who floated behind the main triangle trio in two more triangle formations. "You interfering little..."

"Finish them already!" Bill ordered.

"I promised Dipper I would get him his journal back..." Danny took a defensive step forward. "...and you fruit loops are not going to stop me!"

"Oooh, you promised," Vlad mocked. "You and your stupid promises! So dopey! You are your father's son."

"I never break my promises. Not once!" With that, Danny's ghostly wail flew out of his mouth, turning Vlad back into one ghost and all the other villains in this scene to fly backwards. The unlucky trees in the way of his attack got flattened for a good while. He kept it going for 10 seconds, then collapsed on the ground and turned back to Fenton.

He moaned on the ground, but quickly got over it. He rose up. His headache from earlier was seriously not getting any better. Without a word, he grabbed his thermos, ectoplasm gun, and backpack. Danny walked off from the group, leaving them speechless.


	9. Chapter 9

**KAJAGLKJKLSEGLKJWRGLK HNBKBAGJG. I guess my story is getting popular. I should probably update it...**

**Just a thought.**

_**PREVIOUSLY**_

_"I never break my promises. Not once!" With that, Danny's ghostly wail flew out of his mouth, turning Vlad back into one ghost and all the other villains in this scene to fly backwards. The unlucky trees in the way of his attack got flattened for a good while. He kept it going for 10 seconds, then collapsed on the ground and turned back to Fenton._

_He moaned on the ground, but quickly got over it. He rose up. His headache from earlier was seriously not getting any better. Without a word, he grabbed his thermos, ectoplasm gun, and backpack. Danny walked off from the group, leaving them speechless._

"W-what... D...P..?" Dipper wondered, watching the figure slowly turn into a silhouette. What could the kid say? There wasn't much there he could do. So, in the shade of the trees surrounding where he had wailed, a huge mystery slipped up right under his nose. Wendy, who had been completely and utterly USELESS in the fight, snapped completely back to her senses first.

"Come on, guys, we have to go after him!" Wendy decided, starting to chase after the shadow. Danny hadn't gone very far; it was just a foggy and ominous day in the forest, as you would expect from the creepy place that was described. Within seconds, the group shook the shock off and followed after. The halfa looked over his shoulder and breathed out heavily. Oh boy. They caught up with him in about three quarters of a minute and began bombarding him with questions.

"What was that?!"  
"YOU'RE DP?"  
"You just fought off those dudes!"  
"You just fought off Bill!"  
"You're the creep who stole my journal?!"  
"Why does every boy I love have to be supernatural..."  
"All this time..."  
"Who are you?"  
"Where are you really from?"  
"What's the truth?"  
"What does DP stand fo-"

"Please!" Danny shouted, exhausted from the fight and exposing his secret. "Just let us walk back to the shack in peace...Before Vlad and Skulker come back..."

"Can I have my journal back...?" Dipper decided that he should stop bugging whatever this guy was. _One more question will do..._

"I hid it so I could look at it. Don't worry... I promised I would get it back to you, and I will," Danny said, blankly. Dipper blinked at that. Promises. Pfft. They were useless here, little did Danny know... This dimension not only had more in store for him then ghosts, but also, trust issues!

It was a long walk back to the Mystery Shack. Mostly, it was silent, except for the random awkward comment on the weather, or the scenery, or just a few little words exchanged throughout the friends. Danny was alert the whole time for the trio that had attacked him before. He already knew he was defenseless against Vlad! He definitely didn't need some mind demon he knew nothing about flying around and examining him. Skulker was a moron he could easily destroy, but there were too many other factors for him to worry about. There wasn't enough time to waste his energy on the 'Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter.' It felt like he had spent a few years in this town by now, but he realized this was the third day. It was only about 2 in the afternoon. "Four more days..." Danny muttered. Dipper perked up.

"Four more days? Until what?" Dipper asked, a bit scared. He was supposed to be the hero, after all. But to be a hero, there had to be something to save. Of course, our little 'Paranormal Investigator' had a few (ahem a million) more questions to ask the phantom, but he decided to hold off as much as he could until they were somewhere he would consider safe.

"It's... a long story." Danny continued to stare straight ahead.

"Please, Danny. It's been to awkwardly quiet for the last hour... We have enough time!" Mabel was eager to know more about her new crush... Or ex-crush. She didn't like liars, but she could kind of reason with this... Kind of like the Troothache story. "Go ahead... It's alright."

"Well..." The raven-haired boy inhaled, then exhaled deeply. "Let me make sure it's safe."

Danny went invisible, leaving the group in shock for a moment. A synchronized 'whoa' escaped their mouths at the same time. They had dealt with many creatures here in Gravity Falls, but their encounters always managed to turn out different than the previous one and always surprised them. Dipper especially was surprised, because of his love of learning and exploration that opened so many little doors and connections in his head that lead him to a million different conclusions and thoughts. Danny looked around, making sure Bill was not present. The good news: he wasn't! The bad news: the second he went back to normal, his ghost sense went off. He moaned.

"What was that?" Dipper asked, noticing the icey blue wisp that came out of his mouth. He noted the electric color was about the same as his bright eyes.

Danny sighed, looking around. He expected Vlad to come back with his stupid little worker, Skulker. "That was my ghost sense. Whenever a ghost is around, it goes off, which means we're about to be in trou-"

"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"

Danny burst out laughing, which confused the group. Wasn't he supposed to be the moody and annoyed teenager he was being for the past hour? No.. The halfa couldn't take it. Sure he had been really frustrated, and usually the Box Ghost was just a pain, but now all he wanted to do was have a giddy feeling overtake him at the stupidity of this. "Oh no... It's a ghost..." He said in a robotish-fashion. He dramatically and fakely held his hand over his head as if he were about to faint. "What ever shall I do?" Then, an idea struck him. Maybe... Maybe this was the group Clockwork had been talking about. There wouldn't be any fault that Danny saw in teaching them how to fight ghosts. "I'm very weak from my last fight... Oh, so weak..." Dipper wasn't buying this little show, but let him continue on. "If only someone could defeat the oh-so-mighty Box Ghost..." Danny's backpack 'accidently' fell off his shoulders (he just made his shoulders intangible, which confused the group a bit.. scratch that, a lot) and all of the ghost hunting gear came out: two thermoses, the ectoplasm gun, a pack of beef jerky he forgot he had snagged somewhere in the town, and a water bottle.

"FEAR ME!" Four cardboard boxes rose up from behind the Box Ghost. Each made a rapid path through the air towards each human. All of them dove out of the way. Wendy, now sort of in the hang of all this ghost biz, grabbed a hold of the ectoplasm gun and shot the threat.

"Eat that, ghost scum!" Wendy shouted as the Box Ghost got green goo to the face, screeching a loud and annoying battle cry.

"Alright, use the thermos!" Danny instructed, but added in a cough for good measure to make sure he really sounded weak and frail from the last fight. The whole act wasn't exactly an entire lie; Plasmius had drained him in his act to keep up appearing normal, but in the end, he knew that he would win. At least, he hoped. Young Daniel could take care of himself, but he feared for his friends. His hero complex, emotions, and big heart was his weak point, and all of his enemies knew it.

The Box Ghost, as expected, rushed back to action in battle. Mabel fumbled around with the thermos until she pressed the suck button. A stream of icey blue light flew out of the container at Danny. "Not at me!" He shouted as he dodged the beam.

"Oops! Sorry!" Mabel nervously laughed as Dipper mastered his thermos in seconds. The preteen boy aimed perfectly at the Box Ghost and sucked the enemy in. "I did it!" Mabel shouted, thinking she had done well, not realizing it was her brother capturing the paranormal 'beast.' Much to her dismay, the ghost was being sucked into her brother's sweaty hands.

"Looks like you got a talent, kid..." Danny said, smiling. Dipper blushed and tipped his hat down towards his face in embarrassment. Mabel just kind of felt low-key jealous. _Maybe this what Clockwork wanted... Maybe it will all be alright._

Oh, I should probably mention that Soos during this entire scene was supervising over the children and making not very witty comments. I guess that's how much I can really portray his character... Unless he comes in last minute and surprises us with a -I'll stop rambling, I am sorry. It's 12 AM.

"We're going the right way, yes?" Danny asked, in a lighter mood by now.

"Just this way, yes," Dipper replied. _I think... The Journal's map showed this way... Right? Yeah. Pretty sure._

...

"Kids! Wendy! Soos?!" Grunkle Stan shouted, looking for his little slaves. He was running the entire Shack by himself! The closed sign was very tempting to him...Ahh. He gave in! He hung it up in the window and figured he should give himself the night off, maybe go clubbing and pick up some ladies. Stan still got it, right? Still has it? How do hip people say it...? Again, sorry, midnight...

Ahem. Anyways, Stan got on his fancy striped sparkling turquoise and purple trousers and put hot curlers to his chest hair. He was going to have the time of his life tonight...

...

The group, now moving at twice the sleepy pace they had been traveling at earlier, were now alive and chatty. They had passed the clearing Danny had made with his ghostly wail long ago, but still, there was no town. A few of them who had been keeping track of the time, mainly the most paranoid ones, Danny, Dipper, and Wendy, were getting worried that they were lost. Mabel and Soos pranced along, clueless and chubby as usual. They had began to be more talkative, but it was more about butterflies and nature stuff around them.. It was Dipper who decided to leap in VERY subtly with questions...

"Wow! Bjeng-POW!" Mabel was going crazy with all the pretty colored leafs falling around her and the blue butterflies that were seemingly attracted to her.

"Sick! The leafs are starting to match my hair color!" Our favorite, freakishly tall ginger said. (Yes, it is Wendy...)

"I wonder if these caterpillars are what's making my face feel numb..." Soos said, with at least five brightly colored caterpillars crawling around on his nose. "Heh. It's really tingly."

Then, Dipper couldn't take it! Too much messing around! Someone needed to be productive! "SO! DaNnY is a GhOsT?" Everyone just blankly stared at him. "...Yeah! Right?" The awkwardness overcame the boy, and his cheeks were tomato red. "Wow! That creek is very... Wow." He pointed at the creek.

"Wow!"

"Yeah!"

"Hey, a distraction from the weird moment Dipper created!"

That last comment was Soos, by the way^^

Danny did one of those cartoony little scotch-free whistles away from the almost investigation. He had enough of those in his dreams with the Guys in White. They were out of his way for awhile now, but for awhile they had him tracked down. It was pretty scary. There would be time enough later to tell stories, anyways.

The Summer days in Gravity Falls were quite long, and around nine, it began to get dark. Unfortunately for the poor little group, they were stranded out in the woods, heading the exact opposite direction of the town. Amazingly, there hadn't been much talk after Dipper's little outburst of Danny being such a freak. Dipper being nice was only a mask, and he hoped, no, he wanted Danny to know it was just an act that would drop. He wanted answers or he would bump up the measures.

But now, there would be something scarier than what any of them had ever experienced.

The Gravity Falls forest at night.


	10. Chapter 10

_**PREVIOUSLY**_

_Amazingly, there hadn't been much talk after Dipper's little outburst of Danny being such a freak. Dipper being nice was only a mask, and he hoped, no, he wanted Danny to know it was just an act that would drop. He wanted answers or he would bump up the measures._

_But now, there would be something scarier than what any of them had ever experienced._

_The Gravity Falls forest at night._

"Wow... The sunset in Gravity Falls is really prett-" Danny stopped mid-sentence and turned pale. A shiver went up through his spine, like it had been the entire day, except it felt stronger this time. It was his reminder that this was not a normal forest, and the sun setting was not a particularly good sign. "...Wait. _Sunset?_"

Dipper quickly came to the same conclusion as Danny did. The forest was a spooky place, not to be wandered about late. He was very close to punching his new halfa 'friend', actually. All he had done since he was here was frustrate, confuse, and steal from him. Now look! They were lost in the forest here because Danny hid his map from him! Grrr... There wouldn't be any time for anger now! Teamwork was the key to surviving whatever horrors they were going to overcome here. "We shouldn't be out here at night. I've never camped out here, and I really don't want to," Dipper said, looking around the forest cautiously.

Mabel pressed her cheeks together and lowered her voice to a bad impression of Dipper. "Ooh, look at me, I'm Dipper, and I'm going to get eaten by horrible mo***voice crack***nsters!" Wendy, Soos, and she laugh. Her brother moaned.

"Haha, that's pretty good," Soos remarked. "But, we're still totally going to get eaten, dude. This place is infected with creatures and horrible things!"

"Oh, right." Mabel still tried to fulfill her role by keeping the mood light, but was admittedly scared out of her wits.

"We need to find a cave," Dipper said, scanning the area... "There!" He pointed at a little opening into a mountain. "Let's go, before anything gets us while we're defenseless. We'll need to set up a fire. Did anyone bring any food with them?" Danny smirked at the thought of being defenseless. Pretty funny, right? I mean, it was, considering he could destroy someone with a ray coming from his finger.

"Hmm... If I had, I would have brought an infinite pizza slice. That'd be a _really _good thing to wish for!" Soos said. (remember, this is before Blendin's Game...)

And so, everyone began thinking of food... It's not like they were starving to death, but they were still pretty hungry and grumpy from the fight. The only food they had really brought was Danny's beef jerky.

"I should have brought some pancakes my dad had won. Sure, they're old and soggy, but so is Stan, and you guys love him."  
"Maybe some nice peanut butter and sap sandwiches would do us well... If we had bread, or peanut butter, for that matter."  
"Sap would make really good syrup for the pancakes..."  
"These berries aren't poisonous, right?.."  
"Monster meat is only worse for you than normal meat in Don't Starve, I think."  
"I wouldn't mind a few mutated frog legs right now..."

"Please, stop talking about food," Danny groaned. The ghost and Cipher fighting of the day had really drained him. "That fight was exhausting... I really just want to rest up..." That statement was a lie, because he knew he would end up being stuck on watch for most, if not _all, _of the night. As they all neared the cave, it was clear that something in there was staring at them. Three pairs of glowing, yellow eyes batted at them from inside. Danny felt weird, like his ghost sense should have been going off right about now. Instead, he just felt... _cold. _The shivery feeling that had been following him around his entire trip in Gravity Falls came out in a mutated ghost sense, which would be more of a monster sense, I suppose. A white wisp of air came out of his mouth. It had a faint smell and taste of a mint. "Huh...?"

Dipper noticed the little wisp of air, as well. "...What was that? It didn't look like you were just breathing out cold air... Is it a ghost power?"

"Ooooh, do I smell... mints?" Mabel commented, licking her lips. "It doesn't look like we're going to get to brush our teeth tonight, so if whoever has the mints wants to share, ya girl Mabel is right here, you know..."

"...I'm not sure what that was. It felt like my ghost sense, except more like I was being tickled when I exhaled," Danny replied after a few seconds. _That's weird. Is it a new ghost power? Doesn't seem like it's doing much... _"It can't mean anything good, though... I'm going ghost!" He began to transform into his ghost half, but midway through paused and looked at all the shiny eyes of his new friends staring at him. The rings that had made it to his calves and his shoulders started to make their way back to their origin to turn him back into a human. "...Know what, I can do this as a human." Everyone sort of just... blinked... at that.

"What's wrong?" Wendy asked, tilting her head in a confused manner.

"Oh... Uh, just think I can get along with being a human for this..." He gave a cute little half-smile.

"You can feel free to transform in front of us anytime... It's cool." Wendy laid her hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "We won't think you're a freak." Danny missed Jazz for a moment, and felt the same comfort from this red-head as had from his big sister.

"...Thanks." Danny still didn't feel very comfortable, so he just went on ahead in his weaker form. "Don't worry about me, worry about yourselves. Whatever sense just came out of my mouth isn't good news, I can tell you that much." He walked up into the cave first. He had never recognized one of his only weaknesses was saving himself in front of others, but the group had already come to start to realize it.

Danny's hand lit up with an ectoplasmic light, filling the entire cave with an eerie, green light. The pairs of yellow eyes were revealed to be some sort of three-headed hydra bat, except instead of tiny little bat paws, each hand/foot was the size of a basketball when you added on the length of the razor-sharp claws. It jumped onto Danny's face and began its attack. "AHHH!" Danny screamed, shutting his eyes. The creature was able to slice a quarter of the way into his arm before he turned intangible. The poor creature was flustered and swiped at him a couple of more times, which would have made Danny chuckle if he wasn't human and that seriously hurt a ton. With the group distracted on getting the bat, he transformed into PHantom. "..Ow..." He blasted the creature with his ectoplasmic hand ray, stunning it. "What is this thing?!"

"It's a hydra bat!" Dipper shouted in response, trying to recall what to do in the situation a hydra bat attacked. "Grrr... If I still had my JOURNAL-Ah!" The boy ducked. The hydra bat, as he called it, had recovered and lunged at him. He rolled on the ground away from where the monster had pounced, quickly glancing back up to see his beloved hat was being poked at by the demonic bat. Danny shot his ectoplasmic rays at it, but there was hardly any stun this time around.

"I can't keep blasting it! Do you have any idea how I can stop it?!" Danny directed this at Dipper, but was open to any suggestions.

"Uhh... Bats have sensitive lungs!" Soos blurted out, proud of his random knowledge.

"That gives me an idea!" Dipper said, in thought. "If you can the thing to breathe in any amount of poison, it will die!"

"I can't shoot poison out of my hands!" Danny stopped for a moment and tried... Nothing. _Darn! I could really use a new ghost power... _"But... I know what I can do!" He shot icy beams, the color of his normal eyes, at the hydra-bat and froze it. It dropped to the ground in a big chunk of ice.

"...You have _ice _powers?!" Wendy said, mouth dropping wide open. That was so... COOL, don't you think?! HAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAH AH AHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAH AHA AHHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH AA AH HA HAAH AHAH

YOU GET IT

BECAUSE

ICE IS

wait for it...

COOL

hahahahaha

that was a proud moment

...ANYWAYS

"I really didn't expect that..." Wendy admitted, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Heh, well, there's more where that came from... But I think we'll be good for the rest of the night..." Danny said, looking down at himself. Jumpsuit, silver boots, the important DP symbol, and silver gloves... Everything seemed so familiar to him, and probably to Amity Park. Here, though, he was still probably passing the Unknown Villain stage, where absolutely nobody who he was, and those who did know planned to destroy him, except his closest allies. He transformed back, a bit embarrassed at his current state, actually. He always felt like the odd one out, regardless of the circumstances, and their displayed actions towards him were definitely no help. _So much for that comforting moment, Wendy... Guess I am still a freak in your eyes. Ah well, guess I'm used to it now. _"Time to sleep?"

Dipper, assuming that Danny would take first watch, volunteered. "I'll take first watch!"

Danny wanted to take first watch, but he felt uncomfortable with Dipper. He seemed like a completely capable KID. That was the half of it! That KID was figuring things out much too quickly and being way too nosy for his own good. He didn't feel like being bombarded with questions for the time being, because there would be more than enough of that to go around back home when he got back. Danny trusted Clockwork when he told him that he would take care of his friends and family, but there would still be a lot of story to tell Sam and Tucker. Jazz would probably be excluded from his entire story, because he knew that there would be too much confusion... AND QUESTIONS! Danny debated whether to volunteer, until everyone just sort of... Looked at him. It was a really strange look, like they were expecting him to, and that was probably because they were. Dipper, more than anybody. They all knew they would be safer with this neon green fighting machine watching their backs. "...FINE! I volunteer as tribute. I'll take first watch..." _AND probably every OTHER watch... Hmmph._

Everyone settled into bed after eating their single slice of beef jerky for dinner. Dipper checked to make sure everyone was asleep an hour later. Once he knew for certain, using certain methods I'm not awake enough to make up/Google, he poked Danny with a stick. "Hey, watch it..." Danny responded, but it wasn't very forcefully. He was too tired for anything. He hadn't had this exhausting of a day in awhile. Dipper poked him again. "What do you want?"

"I have some questions," Dipper said, gathering his thoughts and deciding what would be the best to ask him in a precise order.

Danny groaned, looking at the ground and focusing on staying awake. "Ask your questions, and I'll decide if I feel like asking them or not," he growled.

_That's probably the best I'm going to get out of him, _Dipper decided. "...Well, first and foremost, I know it's pretty obvious-"

"What's your question?"

"Well, we're not out here looking for your family, right?... We were out there to battle Bill and the two foreigners-"

"-Vlad Plasmius and Skulker"

"-and I, for some strange reason, get the feeling that you really don't want to find them. I doubt they're even in the forest!"

"No, we're not here to find my family."

"Why? Did you bring us out here to be attacked? Why are we out here?"

"I need allies. I need to know the forest, and more importantly, I need allies. Before _it _happens..."

"What?! Before what happens...?" Dipper seemed like a scared little kid for a moment, kind of like he used to be before Gravity Falls.

"I... don't know if I can say. It's happening soon, and it means total global destruction!"

_I've seen that before, in invisible ink in the Journal... _"Come on, man! This is the fate of the world, at least let me know!"

"It relates to Bill... I don't think Clockwork would approve of me spilling..."

"Who's Clockwork?"

"I can't say... That's giving up too much information?"

"Well, I guess you're not getting my help, then. Information for an alliance, that's my price." Dipper knew he would get the information and that Bill was HIS problem, so eventually he would be teaming up with Phantom, no matter how much of a thief he thought the half-ghost was. "At least tell me where you're from..."

"I... well... I can't say that either."

"Do you even have a family?! Or friends?!"

"Of course I have a family! Of course I have friends!" Danny was genuinely offended! Come on, Dipper! :c

"Tell me about them!"

_I suppose I could say something... Maybe it will satisfy his brain for the night and he'll let me rest... _"Fine. I have a sister, Jazz. She reminds me of Wendy, to be honest. Caring, protective..." Caring didn't sound exactly right to Dipper, but he didn't interrupt this new flow of information. "My dad, Jack. My mom, Maddie. Then there's Tucker and Sam, my two best friends."

"Sorry... Your mom and dad? What do they do for a living?"

"Heh... Um, well funny you should mention that. They're actually the world's leading ghost hunters." Danny chuckled pitifully for his parents.

Dipper raised an eyebrow. Being obsessed with conspiracy and the supernatural, he was pretty sure he'd of known of Jack and Maddie Fenton. "I've never heard of them..." Then the stupidity of their jobs and their son clicked in his brain. "What? You're their... son? Ghost hunters... Are you the only one of your kind?"

"Well... No. Vlad Plasmius, he's what that nerd I dealt with a while back called a Halfa. Half ghost, half human. Two of a kind. It's a miracle my parents found out yet..."

"They'd understand, wouldn't they?"

"They've told me that they'd rip me apart molecule my molecule before, if that counts... While I was in my ghost form, of course. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz know my secret."

"Sam and Tucker, they're pretty cool guys?"

"Sam's a girl. It's short for Samantha, but... Don't call her that."

"...Even if I ever did manage to meet this girl from wherever you're from, why?"

Danny stared straight into his eyes. "Trust me, DON'T." He shyly backed out of his intense stare. "I'm done talking, for now. Let's just wait in silence, alright?"

Dipper nodded. Little did either of them know that the silence was about to be ruined... A shadow of a mysterious beast was becoming more and more apparent to Dipper's close watch on the forest. He prayed it would go away, but of course they wouldn't be so lucky...

**Happy 2:19 AM. I said well too many times in this chapter, and probably the entire story. And I added too much dialogue. Tell me if you want less talking, because I like making them talk, mainly because it's easier to write. Adventure is fun to read, too. Whatever you guys want. Throw suggestions everywhere at me, I don't really mind. I just want you guys to read it and not cringe. Longer chapter because this one took a fricking MONTH to put out. Happy Summer. Please don't expect many more soon. I'm gone all next week, but this story will all be pumped out eventually. 'night**


	11. Chapter 11

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_"I'm done talking, for now. Let's just wait in silence, alright?"_

_Dipper nodded. Little did either of them know that the silence was about to be ruined... A shadow of a mysterious beast was becoming more and more apparent to Dipper's close watch on the forest. He prayed it would go away, but of course they wouldn't be so lucky..._

Danny's ghost sense went off. That perked him up, at least enough to look around. "Err... Dipper?" Dipper pointed off at where the shadow was. "Stay here. I'll be right back..." He walked behind a tree, more uncomfortable now than ever turn into his other half. The tree managed to deflect the flash of light from hitting any of the sleeping sets of eyes from Mabel, Wendy, or Soos. His hands dimly lit up the area with a toxic glow. He followed the huge shadow... just a clearing? It had been there when the group had first arrived, but the big shadow it was producing in the full moon's light made no sense. There was nothing big enough there to make such a large, straight shadow. Danny flew closer and closer to where the shadow ended. He wondered...was it invisible? He phased his head through where the shadow ended, invisible and intangible. Inside was an entirely different story than the forest around him.

This wasn't a beast at all! I_ don't like the looks of this, _he decided. In the room was an open ghost portal with many, many, MANY of his enemies crossing through. Ember, Johnny, Technus, Desiree, Spectra, you name it! Plasmius and Skulker were there, of course, too. Danny's two attackers from earlier definitely had a part of this. Who would have guessed? The ghost portal had drawn his eye to the centerpiece of the entire structure. It was weird, like two way glass had been covering all of it up in a spherical manner. Except for the fact that Danny was _sure _that they had walked through here earlier. The big shadow seemed like it would have been more visible in the sunlight than in the moonlight, but nobody had spotted it. Danny wandered around unseen in the building. Nothing human was in there; in fact, the only outsider was Bill Cipher. It was a futuristic design, white metallic walls, bright blue lights, big walls covered in cylindrical flat screens that stretched across in perfect high definition... There were even hexagons seen imprinted around randomly just for style. The room looked like a lab, except there were no experiments in sight.

Stealthy as a ghost can be, and of course, being completely invisible is their specialty, he investigated the weird room, undetected. Danny was too stunned to stay for long. He took one last glance around, noting that the tube seemed to go on infinitely up. There was an icy metallic floor, but that barely drew any attention compared to the rest of the facility. Ghosts everywhere seemed to be getting tasks from other ghosts. Quickly, he flew out before he could be detected, even though that was ridiculous. What was going to be in there, an ectoplasm sensor? After all, he did fit in as a ghost. _Better safe than sorry... _Danny told himself and flew back to the group.

"Uhh..." He transformed back into Fenton behind a tree, still feeling immensely uncomfortable changing in front of the others, especially Dipper. "Dipper?" He walked out, a green ectoplasm gun trained on him. "Whoa. Cool it, man." Dipper seemed to be sweatier than usual, which is why Danny made the 'cool it' comment. His almost attacker didn't seem to understand the joke. Pity. The boy lowered the weapon with a lot of restraint. There was clearly something he had against our favorite half-ghost protagonist, and that certainly wasn't going to fly well between everyone.

"S-sorry..." Dipper stumbled over his words, trying to find something to cover up almost shooting Danny. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't shoot a human. Even though he _technically _wasn't human, the boy's mind was still conflicted over complete annihilation to him and this mess he was creating or pressing for more answers. "Did you see anything?"

Danny's face went pale _(_you could say that_ he looked like he saw a ghost..._ heheh)."Right... Umm. We have to go, like, now."

"What? Why-"

"Dipper, please, no time for long questions. I'll answer them at some point," Danny said, meaninglessly, which meant no promises for answers. However, it satisfied Dipper enough to stop him from arguing. "Get on my back."

"I think I may have seen something about a shadow like that in the journal... If only SOMEONE hadn't stolen it..." Dipper had writings about ominous shadows recorded in the journal, but misjudged what was the source of the shadow. He had guessed it was a giant tree person or something easily mistaken for nature. Danny had barely had any time to explain what had happened, and everything was beginning to happen faster and faster...

"Nothing about what was up there was in your book... Just... climb onto my back, we have to go. I'll get the others, but I'd prefer if we could continue this conversation later, okay?" Danny said, calmly. Dipper reluctantly got into his little piggy back ride position. "Hold on tight..." Despite feeling uncomfortable, Fenton turned into Phantom. The blinding blue rings quickly made their way around him, transforming him into the hero he was known as. Dipper, still in disbelief of the entire situation, watched with awe. One second he was human, the next, a ghost. It was hard to wrap his mind around!

"I don't know where you come from, but my friends and sister can't exactly fly... How are you going to carry them?! We can't leave them behind!" Dipper exclaimed, becoming more and more fearful of whatever was casting the shadow, mainly because the guy here with the superpowers was becoming more and more frantic.

"Are you kidding? I'm ripped!" Danny flew up into the air, getting ready to fly into the cave to pick the two up. Flying through the cave would be faster than walking in, he decided, so he turned intangible and dove right in to carry the group. The only issue was that Dipper could barely comprehend what was happening and nearly fell off. His stomach felt weird as they went through the cave wall.

"Mmpphhh..." Dipper groaned, keeping one arm over Danny's shoulder and one holding onto his hat. "...What... what was that?!"

"I'll explain it later, alright?" Danny shot ice cubes all around the unsuspecting, sleeping adventurers. "Hey, pssst. Get up, we have to go. Like, right now."

"Ugh..." Mabel looked up sleepily. "I had a crazy dream last night that the hottie Danny was really a..." She blinked. "...Dang it." Danny sort of slumped, but it didn't really work, as he was hovering off the ground and carrying Dipper on his back. "Just once... I need a regular crush." Guess being a ghost didn't really FLY (hahaha ghost power pun) with the group. Whatever... It didn't matter. He had Sam and Tucker.

"Everybody, I'll tell you what's going on later... Please, let's just go, before they find us," Danny said. He grabbed onto the half-awake members of their little expedition, then blasted out of there. _Urgh... I've lifted heavier things, I guess... Just not going at 110 miles per hour! _They jetted back to the Mystery Shack. By this point, everyone was wide awake.

"Thanks, Danny... But why didn't you just do that in the first place?!" Dipper was tiiiiired.

Danny stared stupidly down at his silver boots. "I... just wanted to hold off any ghost activity. All it does is create trouble, and I thought we could find our way back. Plus... You remember that Vlad guy? I was hoping he wouldn't find me, but I didn't realize what was happening. The shadow... It was..."

"A shadow?" Wendy, Soos, and Mabel chorused. They hadn't yet been informed of why they had to speed out of there so quickly.

"Well, you see... I'm tired. It's been a long night. Just, please go off to bed. I'll explain this all... eventually."

"Dibs on the couch!" Wendy called out, smirking at Soos.

"Joke's on you dood, I have my own break room." Soos beamed with pride, happy with a nice, dusty bed.

"Yep... Let's all just move along, off to bed..." Dipper said. His arms shifted inside his vest with Danny's Fenton Thermos, making sure to keep it hidden. "Danny, where are you going to sleep?"

"I'm _not. _There's no way that under the circumstances, I can leave... If I get caught..."

"By who?" Dipper asked.

"Vlad.. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time... I'm just not going to sleep." Danny nearly prayed nobody asked him to elaborate on Plasmius' schemes. All he wanted was time to think. Alone.

"...You're not going to sleep tonight?" Mabel asked. She knew that they all could protect themselves, but seriously didn't want a sleepy not-exactly-ex-crush blasting green lasers everywhere. "You really should try to get some shut-eye... You can use my bed if you'd like?"

"Umm. I appreciate it, but... I've been fighting ghosts for awhile now, sleepless nights... enemies everywhere..." Danny shivered, remembering the Pariah Dark attack. "Don't worry about it. Just go to bed, you'll be alright." He half-smiled and stretched his arms out, then floated up in the air.

"What about my journal? I know you want to keep it for safekeeping or whatever, but I'd seriously appreciate it if you'd give it back, like, right now." Dipper's hands turned into fists at his sides. "You promised, remember?"

Danny's mind was racked with guilt. He remembered the promise very well, and was more surprised than anything of what Dipper had remembered. He was much smarter than he had first given him credit for. "It's too complicated right now... You'll get it back. Vlad... He can't have the information in that book. You don't know what he's capable of-"

"You don't know what _I'm _capable of, Danny!" Dipper growled, raising his fists a little. "You've gotta admit that after all we went through in the forest, you have to trust me a little."

"Just give me a chance, I'll get it back to you... soon..." Danny said, gritting his teeth. He needed to study it... The others needed to go off to sleep and let him do his work. Alone.

"Hey, it's not _yours_!" Wendy said, agitated and exhausted.

"No, no... Wendy, it's okay," Dipper said, surprisingly calm. "Let's just... get to bed." Danny didn't like that. It made him very suspicious. A second ago, this 12 year old had been all up in his business and now he just backed down? That wasn't going well through anyone's head. Danny just guessed he had to let it go for now.

"Look, it's late and we're all tired, but I doubt any of us are going to get any sleep," Mabel said, staring at the ghost hovering off of the ground. "We need some answers. Can you at least tell us what you can do?"

"...She's right. I need something to put in my fanfiction," Soos said, pulling the bill of his hat over his face a bit more in embarrassment.

"Then you will all leave me alone for the night? You'll go to sleep and-"

"We'll trust you, alright?" Wendy cut his sentence off, anxious to get everyone to bed. She was probably under a stronger sleep spell than anyone else in there. "Show us what you've got, ghost-boy."

Danny groaned. He needed their trust and help... "Urgh... FINE. Someone, throw something at me." Mabel got the remote controller and threw it right at his stomach. His belly suddenly formed a hole, letting the object pass through a shifting ring of ectoplasmic flesh. Everyone's eyes were big, mainly with shock. These powers were so cool and new to them, and kind of freakish. The only issue was at that exact moment, Grunkle Stan marched into the room, rubbing his eyes.

Oh boy.

**Hey, unrelated side-note. Just got the first issue of the Invader Zim comic. Love it so much.  
...I don't know why I said that, maybe I'm just super happy. Ah well, I recommend it :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**If any of you were wondering about the title, it's because of Reality Trip being my favorite episode, and where some of these ideas came from. Slow updates, I'm awful at storying, as you've all probably figured out. School starting and trying to figure out the best way this story can go.**

_**PREVIOUSLY**_

_His belly suddenly formed a hole, letting the object pass through a shifting ring of ectoplasmic flesh. Everyone's eyes were big, mainly with shock. These powers were so cool and new to them, and kind of freakish. The only issue was at that exact moment, Grunkle Stan marched into the room, rubbing his eyes._

_Oh boy._

"Kids! Soos! Wendy?..." Stan had never really been the hunter of the supernatural. The whole shack was his brother's, except for the phony stuff set up for money. He narrowed his eyes at Dipper, feeling slightly deceived... He told the kid to do ONE thing! "Dipper... why did you go looking for trouble? You call those government agents, you raise the dead..." Danny, despite the fear and surprise of the moment, noted the whole zombie thing. "...and now, what's this? Come on!"

"But... I..." Dipper bit his lip, recognizing the tight spot he was in. "You-"

Stan shook his head 'no.' "I don't want to hear it, kid. Leaving me to bust your ghosts for you..."

"Wait! Stop, he's innocent!" Mabel shouted, defending her half-ghost crush-of-the-week. "Stan, I know you may see a lot in this town or have some bad experiences... Secret suprise Soos im a pig's body, that freak show of Gideon and his robot-"

"Haha, don't forget that bunker we totally went into a few days ago, dood, with the shape shifter nonsense!" Soos announced the trip they had taken. Mabel and Dipper's faces reddened simultaneously, slightly frustrated at their chub-chub friend-man was revealing things best swept under the rug. "Haha...I mean...bunker Cafè? Real busy with cool attractions this time of year!...savedit.."

"WHAT!?" Stan supposed he really couldn't get too angry, since he still had secrets of his own that he, of course, withheld from the rest of the household. Still! Betrayal within his own line of inheritance! He just sort of growled. Danny, the entirety of the time, had just been sitting there floating awkwardly, stunned by the turn of events.

"Um. So you have some issues to work out, I'll just be on my way-" Danny started.

Stan grabbed the turtleneck part of the jumpsuit, pulling the unaware floating Phantom down to his eye level (which was, admittedly, not an extreme length). Since the motion was so sudden, Danny's intangibility seemed to slip his mind. "Stay away from the kids, or we'll have a problem. Got it?" Danny realized Stan reminded him kind of like Walker. Ugh, what an annoying control freak... He tried to clear his head, figure out of this guy was going to be real trouble or not. He HAD threatened him, but it was more that he wanted to protect his family. How sweet? It was probably nothing, but there just seemed to be something _wrong _with Stan protecting the kids, like he had already failed. They had already been out all day and night.

Danny turned invisible and intangible at the same time. He floated up to the ceiling, spectating whatever was going to happen next. Stan growled, looking at the kids. "Whatever that demon was, that's what I need you to stay away from." All anger aside, he truly did care for the kids. "I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, _be careful._"

"Yes, Grunkle Stan," Mabel and Dipper said at the same time. Dipper had stood up for himself at the past, but his main priority at the moment was to get to sleep. That would be easier said than done, seeing as the entire day gave the boy a million paranormal things to think about, namely being _what is going on?_

Everyone found somewhere to crash for the night, whether it be their own bed, the break room, or the couch. Everyone excluding Danny, of course. He was probably the most tired out of all the people in the Shack, but he couldn't fall asleep, not with everything that was happening. The only thing he could really think to do was to study the journal and to gain more knowledge of the town. It seemed too much like school to him, but as long as everything was calm, Danny supposed he needed to take a look at this supernatural documentation of Gravity Falls. For the rest of the night and a lot of the morning, he read and read for what seemed like forever. Around 4AM, he flew upstairs and woke Dipper up very quietly. He held his hand over his mouth to silence him and flew them both up to the roof. "Dipper, we have to talk about the journal." Dipper, still barely awake, looked at Danny.

"Give it back to me..." Dipper shook his head, waking his brain up. "Give it back!"

"I can't do that, okay? It's going to get stolen and fall into the hands of Vlad or some other annoying ghost!" Danny held it out of Dipper's reach. "Ghosts are dangerous. They'll take it from you! We need somewhere safe."

"Give it back!" Dipper growled, trying to reach for the journal. No dice.

"I said no, kid!" Dipper pulled a Fenton thermos out of his vest, aiming it at Danny. He gasped. "That's... perfect!" He grabbed the thermos out of his hands, trying to reprogram it. "Is this book made of ecto-energy?" Dipper grunted, now being weaponless and journal-less.

"...Um, no. It's just a normal journal."

Danny groaned and dismissively dropped the thermos back into Dipper's hands. "Of course it's not that easy. My thermos only traps ghostly energy, not whatever weird spooky things you have going on around here. I flipped through it-"

"You _looked _through my-"

"-journal? Yes, admittedly. I should have asked you and I'm sorry, but you don't understand-"

Dipper's frustration and barely-being-awake-ness was starting to get the best of him. "No. I don't think you understand." He was beginning to recognize the anger rising in a hot feeling, energizing him. He took a menacing step forward. "If you read the journal, you _surely _must have read where it said 'trust no one.' I only trusted Mabel with it almost immediately. Soos, Wendy... Stan... They took time. So, you can't just waltz!...er, fly," Dipper quickly corrected himself and continued on with his little rant, "in here and take it from me! It's not your choice, Danny!" The boy found himself shouting in the night, boiling over the top. No doubt that had woken someone in the house, and he only prayed it wasn't Stan (who was currently in the basement, wide awake, continuing to work on the portal). With an exasperated sigh, Dipper continued on with a low whisper. "This is my entire summer, this has been my life for the past month and a half. It's been everything to be. Now, _give me my journal back._"

Danny ran a gloved hand through his white hair. He realized something: he had never really given any explanation for himself. Clever as a fourteen year old boy could be, he still made mistakes. A lot of them. There were so many questions lying everywhere, so many that all the thoughts running through Dipper's head lulled him to bed, if that makes any sense. It was like he was comforted by how confused he was, but more in a cranky, baby-crying way. "Kid...I-I mean, Dipper. I owe you some answers, don't I?" He had noted that the use of the term 'kid' didn't pass well. Pfft. Tweens. Dipper looked up at the floating phantom in disbelief and slowly nodded his head. "Well, ask away." Danny lowered himself onto the roof, transforming back into Fenton and sitting down. Dipper sat straight across from him, at a loss of words.

Dipper thought this moment would go down in a fight, where the thermos captured him and he forced the ghost to tell him everything. "...What's going on?" He decided he was more worried about his family's safety than anything.

Danny chuckled. Maybe he was tired (trust me, he was), and that was the reason he was doing this. Maybe he was just plainly tired of secrets. "...Could'ya be more specific?"

Dipper laughed nervously. "Oh, uh, right. Why are you here...I mean, how did you get here... I.. uh..."

"...I think I get what you're getting at." Danny closed his eyes, ready to spill the truth. "Here goes nothing...There was a ghost named Clockwork that saved my entire family in the past. Myself from 10 years in the future was a monster, but that doesn't matter." Dipper cocked his eyebrow. "What matters is he sent me through a dimensional portal to save your dimension, Dipper. Bill is threatening more than your world. Vlad is apart of it, along with every other ghost. They're probably being promised some power of authority. Bill's going to do it: he's going to change the entire multiverse to his imagination. Everything will be his dreamscape."

Dipper's jaw dropped. "I, er. Really? He's altering out realities?..."

"It wouldn't be the first time, Dipper... unfortunately, the gauntlet was destroyed..." Once again, the twelve year old wondered. Someday, when this was over, Danny would have to tell him some pretty sick bedtime stories. "But you didn't let me get to the best part. I need your help. I need your help, your sister's, everyone you've got. It's daytime. We have four more days."

"...I just had to start with that question, didn't I?" He nearly swore just for the fun of it. Why not? Everything might end soon enough. It was only a matter of time. "Man, it's four in the morning." As much as Dipper wanted to curl up and ignore everything, he still had a billion questions. He may not be so fortunate to have another Q&amp;A session. Rather than things that would fluster him, he decided to ask about personal things that the kid was generally curious about. "Why do you protect humans? Aren't we, like, your enemies?" Dipper wondered, tilting his head to the side.

"Humans aren't much of a threat, unless they have high-tech equipment." Danny's head drooped a bit. "Like my parents. Or the Guys in White. Or Vlad, but I guess he doesn't really count as a human, does he? I'm half human, though. There's people I care about, just like you." Dipper seemed to be satisfied, but the answer didn't feel specific enough. "I'm not a ghost. I'm a human. That's one thing I've always been, whether half or full."

Dipper wished he had a pen to click. He just sort of muttered out a, "Really?"

"There was an accident in my parent's lab that turned me this way. Sam and Tucker... They thought I was dead, and in a way, I kind of was. I devoted all my time and ecto-energy to ghost fighting, maintaining a decent GPA, and keeping the slight social life I actually have."

"...Your world doesn't know who you are?"

"Oh, don't get me wrong. They know who I am, both people. They don't know I'm _one and the same, _though. I get bullied and picked on by the stupid football team, then get cheered on later and get called their idols in battle. The only difference is my appearance, and it sucks. That's alright, though, because I have Sam and Tucker. My parents don't understand how unhelpful they are sometimes in battle. The couple attack me instead of the bad guy..."

Both of them yawned. "Dipper, I'll give this book back on one condition."

Dipper groaned. "Whaaat?"

"Keep it in your sight at all times. Do not let anyone else see it. If you feel the weight disappear, it's probably a ghost. Use the thermos. And, Dip? One more thing."

Danny handed him the journal, which he immediately stuffed in his vest. "Have a good night's rest, bud."

**wowee updates, man. zzzschool sucks...zzzz**


	13. Chapter 13

**I'm sorry I didn't update... I guess I lost inspiration. The truth is, I had no clue what to do, and later decided I needed to update and decided how the rest of the story was going to go. Sorry about all that, folks. I got real discouraged when I had no clue where the story was going.**

**Also, I'm going to add a bit of story progression blankness in, just like Gravity Falls characters would do. What I mean is, they state what they're going to do and then do it, almost like a robot.**

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_"Keep it in your sight at all times. Do not let anyone else see it. If you feel the weight disappear, it's probably a ghost. Use the thermos. And, Dip? One more thing."_

_Danny handed him the journal, which he immediately stuffed in his vest. "Have a good night's rest, bud."_

Danny started transforming so he could fly the child back to bed. It was late and he didn't want to be responsible for a grumpy 12 year old in the morning. Dipper stared, mouth gaping right open. Everything happening made practically no sense to him, but then again, when did anything in Gravity Falls make sense? Danny transforming was still new and, to say the least, shocking. He definitely hadn't been comfortable earlier transforming in front of the group, so why did he now, in front of Dipper? None of Dipper's body parts were working, out of shock, he figured. He finally managed to gather his senses and forced the words out of his mouth, "Wait! Stop." The futuristic blue rings paused, and rather than their normal split through the middle of his torso, they were stuck vertically through in the middle, splitting one half of his face from the other. Danny just stood there. Did the kid just tell him to _stop? _That was weird, but he did it anyways. "Wow..." Dipper mused, eyes wide. "I never thought... nevermind."

"What?" Danny didn't like the eyes Dipper was giving him, like a waiter had just brought out some steak. Except this steak was living, ghostly, and dangerous. Not that he was dangerous to Dipper, anyways. That's what Danny liked to tell himself. There was the inevitable guilt of knowing that someday he would probably hurt someone, someone _innocent _and _undeserving. _All because he had taken that stupid dare and stepped into the portal. Dipper continued talking.

"I just never knew... it was possible. I pointed the thermos at you tonight as a threat," Dipper explained. Danny's eyes widened; his mind had registered it as a bright idea, not an attack. It was stupid. Of course he was getting attacked! Ghost thermoses being pointed at ghosts were never a friendly gesture. "I just... hadn't realized that you were human all the way, I think. It didn't click in my mind that you were human, too. Maybe it had been an illusion, maybe you were trying to trick me, maybe that's why I was tempted to suck you into the thermos and _force _answers out of you. Either way, I'm sorry." Dipper's eyes shined in the moonlight. Guilt racked his brain. "Things have been kept from me all summer, every second. I was just desperate to know the truth."

"I... er..." Danny floated overhead, not sure what to do at that moment. He scratched the back of his head. Even in his literal half-ghost and half-human form, he was still more powerful than any human anywhere. There was no use floating there, so the rings finished their job and Danny sheepishly grabbed Dipper. He turned intangible and went through the roof, earning a slightly frightened gasp from Dipper, and put him in his bed. "Goodnight, kid. Keep the journal close." He'd gotten in the habit of calling Dipper kid, although he knew it aggravated him a bit. It was more poking fun than anything at him. Danny awkwardly but affectionately ruffled Dipper's hair. "Sweet dreams." He didn't exactly know how to leave, so he just turned invisible and phased through the floor.

He lied out on the couch, eyes wide open.

Danny had no clue if that was the right decision or not, giving him the journal back. It wasn't fair that Dipper couldn't have what was rightfully his, and he understood that. There wasn't much for him to do except fall asleep, but he just couldn't. True, Danny hadn't tried to fall asleep for the past day and he was exhausted, but he couldn't bare the idea of him falling asleep with the journal in such a helpless position. He didn't understand the true nature of the book, but he knew it wasn't good. He contemplated whether to fall asleep or not. His eyelids started closing when he heard a _squeak. _That 10/10 times was never something good. Phantom turned invisible almost immediately. It was... Stan... coming up from the basement. He looked like he was being extra cautious when he opened the secret vending machine door tonight. He was muttering something about "that dumb demon kid..."

Glad to have an excuse not to get some rest, Phantom flew through the floor down to the basement, which he didn't even know they had. There was older looking equipment scattered all over the place, operating with screens that had very few pixels. But then... There was the portal. He didn't know how he hadn't noticed that bit first, since it was all lit up and colored. It seemed to be calculating many, many foreign symbols. Oddly enough, the only thing that was running through his head was how _stupid _he had been to get wrapped up with this family. Here Clockwork says to not reveal his secret, but make allies. He revealed his secret all right, but what if they just hunted him down or reported him to the government or something else equally as terrible? Danny chuckled. It was a more 'I'm tired and hungry and everything is awful' laugh that he just had to have to make him feel better than anything. His attention was drawn to a shining picture of Dipper and Mabel. Did they know about all of this? Danny had been trusting them, but he was sure there had to be things that he wasn't being told himself. Finally... there was something familiar on the table. Two journals, the front with a nice, golden six-finger hand. Instead of the familiar 3, there was a 1 and a 2. Without knowing what else to do, Danny flipped open the page of the first book and began studying, more than he ever had in his life. The information in these journals... It was too dangerous. Even without decoding anything or understanding half of the book, he got that much. There was a page, deeply encoded with a blueprint, or rather, a third of a blueprint. He found the same page in the second journal, except it was a different part. The third part was in Dipper's journal, he knew from glancing through the book earlier. Danny wasn't going to go steal it again, especially with the risk of being sucked into the thermos. Plus, it seemed the machine was already up and running right outside the basement window. It wasn't much of a window, more of a protective shield from the futuristic triangle. What was it with this town and triangles?

Speaking of being sucked into things, all the supernatural thoughts in his head were sucking his attention from many things; namely the time. It was six in the morning already? Danny could hardly believe that he held the will-power to keep his eyes open by this time. There was a sound coming from the elevator shaft. He instinctively turned invisible as Stan walked through the door. _Is... he... really the mastermind behind all this work?... _

"Hmm. humm... hmm... Early morning calculations," Stan hummed to himself, readjusting his glasses. A crooked laugh came from _somewhere, _but Stan seemed to be deaf to it.

Bill Cipher, the surprisingly menacing triangle, evilly laughed in the air. He hadn't seen Danny, because he was invisible, even to mind demons. "Once this dump of a portal opens, I'll be all powerful... Seriously, though. Garbage portal. There's better in the entire multiverse!" With a blank look on his face (as blank as one eye could be, anyways), he began to continue talking aloud to himself. "Sure is lonely. Guess I should rehearse my plan... With Vladdy's transmitter attached to my head, it should be enough to connect with the receivers planted in the other dimensions from the ghost portal. The ghost did really come in handy, didn't he? Too bad I'll have to dispose of him soon enough. Losers weepers, am I right?" Bill high-fived himself. A more low-key maniacal giggle rose from his non-existent mouth. He took his hat off and poked the transfer device laid on his head. "Those kids might just come in handy... Pine Tree, Shooting Star, heck, even the fat one..." Cipher flew up through the ceiling to the cylindrical invisible barrier in the woods. Danny? He followed close behind, staying invisible.

"Four days!" The ghosts busily flying around paid no attention to Bill, so he went over and snapped at Vlad. "Hey, Vladdy, get these inferiors working! Four days! I can say that in more than 100 different languages!" He trailed off into as many languages he could think of saying 'four days.'

Danny noted the work going on around here. He tried to think: What had Bill been talking about? Pine Tree, Shooting Star? Fat one...? Kids. He nearly smacked himself across the face! Of course! Bill had to be talking about Dipper, Mabel, and... Soos or Stan? Both were chubby, but he was betting on Soos. _I know they have secrets... but... What do they have to do with all of this? Grr... 'Pine Tree', 'Shooting Star', and I are going to have a little chat... _It just wasn't _fair, _Danny thought, because here he was bending over backwards to make sure they were comfortable with him. What if they were working with Bill? _That settles it, _Danny decided. _I need a plan that depends on me, and only me, being the hero. Man, I wish Sam or Tucker were here right now. _

Danny marveled up at the endless ceiling. There were computers everywhere. No doubt this was invented by Vlad, or some person caught in the middle of his work. Danny wondered what dimensions he was 'promised.' All of the ghosts there were being used, from what he overheard from Cipher. Their faults. There wouldn't be anything to falsely divide if he had anything to say about it, and let me tell you, he had a million things to say. This wouldn't go away with a very firm 'No,' though. He knew better than that. So, he began formulating a plan.

First, he had to gather information, and what better way than to eavesdrop on all the conversations going around him? A few Maddie-bots roamed around, offering juice and cookies to the not-very-hard-at-work ghosts. Bill hovered over to a couple ghosts, discussing something or other.

"The transmitter is up and running, sir-," a nervous six-eyed ghost reported, rapidly blinking. He was your standard green and formless ghost.

"Well, it's not running fast enough." Bill narrowed his eyeball.

"Mannn, it's running off of your energy. Be more enter-get-tack! Get excited!" Another typical ghost with one eye advised, who was the previous ghost's partner. "Am I doing well? Do I get a raise on how much I rule?"

"Hm... You do have one eye, so yes. You can haaveeee... The Netherlands AND Japan!"

"B-but... I had more land than that to start with in an entirely different world!"

Bill completely ignored the last comment. "You know, something feels off to me. Run the ecto-signature scan and put the walls into lockdown." Danny felt his face go white. The two ghosts typed away and, sure enough, Phantom tried to escape but could not prevail. Panicking, he overshadowed a Maddie-bot.

"Signatures seem to be normal, sir. Just a ton of ghosts," the six-eyed ghost replied.

"Hmm. I'll keep an eye on this place... Here! Have a lollipop!" Bill handed a lollipop-looking device to the one-eyed ghost. The lockdown mode shut off.

"Why does he get adored?" the first ghost muttered, getting back to his work. The second ghost intensely sucked on the lollipop.

Something caught Danny's ear, or rather, spiked his eardrum. The lollipop was more of a whistle than anything. It didn't even taste that good! All of the ghosts in the room stopped what they were doing to cover their ears, including Danny. He fell out of the Maddie-bot, completely visible. Bill stared down at him, giving a giddy little eye-grin. "I thought something was off here!"


	14. Chapter 14

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_The lollipop was more of a whistle than anything. It didn't even taste that good! All of the ghosts in the room stopped what they were doing to cover their ears, including Danny. He fell out of the Maddie-bot, completely visible. Bill stared down at him, giving a giddy little eye-grin. "I thought something was off here!"_

Danny grit his teeth. The building fell into lockdown once more. "Hey, Vladdy, your pal's here!" Bill called out to the elder Halfa with delight.

"I could always use a break from my work." Vlad wore a smirk of pure evil. Danny groaned, completely regretting whatever dumb sense in his head had told him to go investigate Bill. "Daniel, you escaped my grasp last time. You won't be as... hmm, how should I put it? _Fortunate _this time." Being the dumb child he was, Danny turned invisible and intangible, for the hopes of not being able to be reached or hurt. Nearly half a million ghosts broke out in laughter at the mighty protector of Amity Park. Bill wasn't laughing, just observing. A dangerous blue light lit up in his eyes and palms.

"Silence! Daniel, is it? Let me talk to you for a second," Bill insisted. A room formed out of absolutely nowhere, enclosing Bill and Danny together. Two chairs materialized out of nowhere, one roughly shoving up behind the 14 year old and forcing him to sit. The dorito gracefully sat in his chair, hands on the table with the same dangerous flame burning. They were alone. "I guess you really don't need all this. You're tired. If you want to help me," he began to offer.

"This room," Danny started, curiously looking around. "You made it from your _mind. _All the dimensions, trapped in your delusions. Fantastic." He sighed sarcastically, then felt his cheeks redden with anger. He wasn't going down without a fight. Kicking his chair back, he forcefully stood up and slammed his hands on the table. "This won't work. I promise... and you could bet on my word, Cipher. I'll stop it."

"You and what army, shortstack?" Bill was completely relaxed, now with his feet up on the table. Phantom paced around the room. "I just want to talk for now."

_I have to get out of here... _Danny searched around the room. Nothing. There were only grey walls, probably ghost-proof. "Get to the point, if you're going to offer something good. I-I mean bad."

"Oh, I assure you, it'll be good! I can offer you power over a dimension to stop your meddling." Bill kicked his legs around in the chair, then span it around. It wasn't that he was bored or threatened, but more impatient than anything else. "Working in this great facility under my terms."

"This won't work. You're going to tear the universe apart!" Danny angrily slammed his hands back down on the table for emphasis. The ignorant triangle was going to destroy everything in the world! "I used to be called Bill. Well, actually, it was Inviso-Bill, which was some lame ghost pun for all the humans who chanted me on. I'd prefer if my past name wasn't known for total destruction."

There was a knock on the wall, since there didn't seem to be any door. "Mr. Cipher-"

"Make it quick," Bill said, dismissively.

"More ghosts are coming through the portal."

"Would'ya look at that! More of these _things _coming to their senses!" Bill cracked his knuckles and stretched his arms out over his head. "My plan will work, kid. Final chance to rule a universe..." He stuck a hand out, lit up with a blue flame.

"No. I won't work with you. Ever!" Danny growled, trying to fly through the walls. He failed. Cipher just laughed. "Let me out of here!"

"Why would I do that?" He continued to giggle psychotically while he talked. "You-hah...know..you're not going..hahaha...to make it out of here ALIVE,hahah, right?"

"...What? I mean..No!" Danny bit his lip. "You and what army?" Danny said, mimicking his words from earlier. He had a plan, but a very slim chance of being able to carry it out. The walls of Bill's make-shift office disappeared.

"_This _army!" Bill threw his arms up in the air as two dozen ghosts flew behind him. The other ghosts were on alert, too, watching the two very closely. "Do you really think you can beat me, Danny? A for effort, but seriously, I have some important work to do."

He snapped his fingers and the two dozen ghosts fired at Danny simultaneously. The halfa sprinted out of the way, turning intangible. There were the few new ghosts being put to work near the portal they had just come through. He made a mad dash for the portal, needing to get through. The intangibility barely held up for a few seconds as ghost-proof guns were fired at him. He was hit and fell onto the floor, greeted by Vlad's heel to his chest. He couldn't retain his intangibility when he was hit, and the gun seemed to shorten his ghost abilities. Danny transformed back into Fenton. "Must you _always _be a thorn in my side?" Vlad asked, charging up a plasma ray that would be sure to end the boy for good.

Danny squirmed under his boot until he fell through the floor. _What? How did I... _This place had felt creepier than the rest of the forest, but it had been a familiar kind of eeriness. This place was the ghost zone, but leaked into the real world... with some weird touch from Bill Cipher. Humans couldn't get in, but they could get out. There was some sort of weird control room underneath the floor of the cylindrical torture chamber of enemies. Danny remembered Sam's words: "_In the ghost zone, we're the ghosts!" _He jumped up through the floor where the ghost portal had been and frantically searched around for a way back to Gravity Falls. He'd never been to this part of the ghost zone before. Looking around the ghost zone, everything seemed quiet and empty. The majority of the ghosts in here were working for Bill, probably.

There was a sign in front of him, clearly saying GRAVITY FALLS. He quickly dove into the portal, which happened to lead him through another portal in the sky above a thicket of trees. He fell down through the forest, grabbing branches on the way down to slow his fall. Finally, there were no more branches about five feet above the ground and he landed on his back. "Guhh," he groaned, dazed. After a few moments, he decided he needed to sit up. Danny remembered his hunger and, apparently, his stomach did, too. He rubbed his temples. It couldn't be past 7AM. Four days, he only had four days left to save everyone. Why did this work always fall on his shoulders? He stood up, everything aching and scratched up. Any attempt he made to turn back into his alter-ego was futile. Completely out of frustration, he kicked a pebble at a tree._ Klink. _It hit a sign, pointing to the infamous Mystery Shack. Danny made his way back.

Back at the shack, Mabel and Dipper were asleep. Stan was up making pancakes in the shape of dollar bills. Wendy had slept on the couch, but not the one in the living room where Danny had been the night before. Soos was up bright and early, making repairs to the deck outside. Danny eventually made his way to the Mystery Shack, spotting Soos right away and calling out for him. "Soos...was it? Hey!" The repair-man turned his head, tucking his screwdriver back into his tool belt and head towards Danny.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay?" Soos studied Danny, who was covered all over in bruises and scratches from falling through the trees from the ghost portal.

"No," Danny blankly replied. "Can I get something to eat? Or somewhere to sleep..." His eyes widened. "No! I can't sleep. Bill's goons are going to be after me..."

"Look, man, you need sleep. You can use my break room if you want...?" Soos handed him a granola bar, which he hastily ate.

"No," Danny spoke, in-between bites. "You don't...mm..understand...I...mmm...SERIOUSLY ticked...mmm..them off..." He thought for a moment. He couldn't change back to a ghost... He couldn't protect the journal. Bill knew he was protecting the family, and he would probably go for the journal now that he was a mere human. "I need to talk to Dipper," he decided aloud, and ran upstairs to the attic.

"...Uh, have fun, dood?..."

Danny bust the twins' door open, breathing heavily. "DIPPER! Please tell me you have the journal!" Dipper sat straight up, nearly getting a heart attack from the burst of dialogue. He awkwardly and slowly took the journal out of his vest, showing it to Danny. The 14 year old shut the door and slid down to a sitting position against it, head tilting to the side. He could fall asleep right now... His real exhaustion kicked in, after the moment of relief, but he shook it off. "_Remember what we talked about last night. _Don't let any ghost snatch it."

"Uh, are you okay?" Dipper protectively held onto his journal just in case Danny had any second thoughts about letting him keep it. He rubbed his eyes and got out of bed, heading to the teenager posted in front of the door. "Your eyes are red. Did you sleep last night?"

"Yes," Danny lied. "That's not important, though. I am in major trouble right now, Dipper." Mabel yawned in her bed and sleepily looked over at Danny. She gasped.

"Danny, you're a _mess!_ What happened?!" Mabel demanded to know.

"I-I got into a bit of trouble last night," Danny continued with what he was saying. (I feel like I'm writing lines for Luke from the Walking Dead Game, if any of you guys have played that. Season 2 in the warehouse where he's completely exhausted.) "Bill... he has this thing under his hat that connects him to all the dimensions. He's going to cut all the ghosts out of the deal once he activates whatever's in the basement."

"...We have a basement?" Mabel wondered, scratching her head. She jumped out of bed and grabbed her emergency sparkly bandaids. She tended to Danny's wounds.

"I...uh..." _I guess they didn't know about it... _

"Danny, you need to get some sleep," Dipper cut in, skeptically staring at him. "Can't you use one of your ghosts powers to... I don't know, heal yourself?"

"I don't know! Maybe."

"You don't know? How do you not know?!"

"Look, I get new ghosts powers occasionally. Maybe I have that power, maybe I don't. Regardless if I can or not, it wouldn't matter. I got shot when I went to Bill's facility... It deactivated my ghosts powers, temporarily, I hope."

"You _hope?!_" Dipper fumed, pacing around the room. "This is bad, very, very, bad."

Danny tried to transform again, startling Mabel. Two blue rings formed around his waist, but disappeared before they could do anything. "Yup," Danny said, with strain in his voice. Even that small little action had taken a lot out of him. "Guess it's not temporary...but it's not going to happen for a little while..." He stared off into the distance, eyelids heavy. He shook it off.

"Danny, are you sure you got sleep last night?" Mabel asked, covering his entire arm in multicolored sparkles in bandage form. "You look awfully tired."

"Okay, maybe I didn't, but that doesn't matter!" Danny huffed, scared out of his mind of what would happen to him when he went to bed. "If I fall asleep, I'm dead! End of story!"

"What if I protected you?" Dipper offered, pulling the thermos out of his vest. "See? It's perfect. I get practice and you get sleep."

"Dipper, no offence, but you can probably handle that thing as well as Jazz..." Danny got an idea. "She always sucked me into the thermos when we were chasing the bad guy... I need you to suck me into the thermos." Dipper uncapped the lid, pointing it at Danny. Nothing happened. "Agh. I won't be able to hold the form for long, if I can at all, so get ready..." Focusing harder than he ever had in his entire life, Danny forced the transformation rings to make their way up and down his body. Everything felt hot, like he had just been exercising nonstop for an hour. His heart was pounding. Why was this so hard? After half a minute, his muscles were completely limp in his body and he was sucked into the thermos.

He drifted off into sleep, happily crammed into the Fenton Works device.


	15. Chapter 15

**For some reason, I had a feeling that Bill's plan was to fuse his mindscape with the real world.**

_**PREVIOUSLY**_

_Focusing harder than he ever had in his entire life, Danny forced the transformation rings to make their way up and down his body. Everything felt hot, like he had just been exercising nonstop for an hour. His heart was pounding. Why was this so hard? After half a minute, his muscles were completely limp in his body and he was sucked into the thermos._

_He drifted off into sleep, happily crammed into the Fenton Works device._

How much time had passed? Danny had completely forgotten about the clock while sleeping away. His heart skipped a beat. What _was _going on? Maybe everyone was dead, maybe Bill had figured out what he had known and stole the thermos. Perhaps it would be better to never come out of the cylinder. No, no, that wouldn't do. Danny was hungry, and he'd have to come out at some point. Seriously, though, his stomach was growling at him like the monster he was. Not for the first time, he commented in his own mind how compact this space was. He smelled something... was it... dust? "...Hello?" At the moment, he wasn't a ghost, and even if he was, he couldn't just phase through a ghost-proof thermos. He transformed anyways, figuring that the machine would have an easier time spitting him out if he transformed back. "Anyone there?" There wasn't any room to knock on the metal.

How had he been so stupid to fall asleep? He faintly remembered what had happened last night, before the dreamless rest had kicked in. Danny had been so desperate to sleep that he had forgotten about Dipper and Mabel, how defenseless they would be without him by their sides. Part of him knew he was being ridiculous, that he was worthless to protect anything with how utterly exhausted he had been. He just prayed everyone was alright and he would be released from the thermos to greet a nice, familiar face. He decided to try his luck again with speaking. "Helloooo?"

There was a muffled, hushed voice outside of the thermos. That was the fault of talking through walls, that he could barely understand whoever was speaking. It sounded like a whisper, despite being kind of cut out. Actually, it sounded like a "shut up, Danny," or rather, a, "smhuht uvp, Dvanneh." Danny shut his mouth. The voice was unrecognizable and it had been a miracle that the Halfa had even been able to derive such words out of that gibberish. After a few minutes of waiting, there were clashes and clangs, not to mention Danny getting a nasty bump on his head from knocking his head on whatever space there was to knock it on. The thermos was dropped and opened. Danny flew freely for half a second before a metal beam fell on his head, rendering him unconscious.

**Three hours earlier...**

Dipper and Mabel were chasing off a couple of rabbit/demons who had been attacking Soos with their tiny little teeth. There were no real injuries; just some scratches and harmless bites. Outside of the mystery shack, was practicing using a new device he had invented. A long rod, about 20 feet long if you fully extended it, attracted metallic objects near the magnetic end of it. The object would attract and move wherever the user willed it to go. The magnet wasn't a _normal _magnet. Actually, far from it. Wherever the user wanted the object to go, it could move to once it was in a 5-foot radius. However, if the object was pulled away from the 5 foot radius, there would be no control over it and it would fall limp again. Currently, the broom was the object being directed by Dipper as the carefully held onto the rod, extended at a comfortable ten feet. The magnet was connected to the metallic section securing the straw of the broom to the stick. Dipper willed the broom to sweep the rabbits away, and so it did. All the creatures ran off into the forest in fear.

"It... it worked?" Dipper gasped, barely containing his excitement. In fact, he was letting out some squeals. "Omigosh, thank you Soos!" The magnet wasn't a normal magnet, of course. Soos had found it in his break room and figured the kid might want it. Dipper compacted the rod to about four inches tall and stuffed it in his vest, alongside the thermos where Danny lie asleep. The broom fell to the ground.

"Oh really dude, it's no problem. Just let me borrow that cool thing-a-ma-jig some time, alright?"

"Uh, yeah, man. Of course." Dipper paused. "What do you need it for...?"

"Um, well... You see..." Soos had a flashback, in which he was expressing the events verbally. Only, you get to have an exclusive view of the flashback in his mind. There he was, in his grandma's house with his cousin Reggie, who were giddily racing toy cars. They even had working batteries! Of course, they didn't work _now, _and this all happened when he was what, 7? The point was that Reggie beat him in the race and forced him to a rematch countless times, each time resulting in Soos' failure. "...I'll finally get him back for all those losses!"

The twins blinked at his story, then looked at each other, trying to decide what to say about it. "Er... well... next time Reggie is in town, be sure to tell me, I guess," was what Dipper wanted to say, before he was so rudely interrupted by insane laughter. He growled. Couldn't Bill just lay off for one time this week?

"Well, well, well, Pine Tree." Mabel and Soos blinked. "Oh! How rude of me to not address the other two. Hello Question Mark, Shooting Star."

"Why does _he _get his name said first?" Mabel whimpered, disappointed that she was called last. Dipper elbowed his sister. This wasn't a matter to argue about!

"Bill! You're... How are you here? You only control the mindscape!" Dipper hadn't been through the entire puppet ordeal yet (pre-Golf Wars), but figured that the demon couldn't just... well, appear out of nowhere.

"Whoops! Guess I am using some of my precious energy..." Bill considered this, tapping his non-existent chin. "But y'know... I thought I should drop by and say hello... Or rather, say my goodbyes!" His eyelids closed into a cruel grin and his cheery yellow essence was replaced by an alarming red. An eerie white glow surrounded him, the source coming from his hat. Well, actually, it came more from under his hat where the device was attached to his head. A free-form, miniature galaxy pattern surrounded a good 15 feet around Bill in every direction.

Dipper caught on quickly enough. He hopped out of the galaxy coming out of Bill's head, dragging Mabel out with him. "...Energy... I don't know what you're doing, but it's not going to work! You'll burn up all your power eventually!"

"Hmm. Maybe I will, but I won't have to keep this up for much longer!"

"I'll stop you... before... whatever you do hap-"

"Oh, please! There's only one person at this point who could stop me, and he died yesterday! Your precious, bet you've been wondering where he's been?" Bill insanely giggled, crossing his arms. Vlad had told him that the ghosts had taken care of the menace, out of fear of a smaller reward. Before anyone could respond to the 'news,' (although Mabel and Dipper knew that he was still alive, safe in the Fenton Thermos in Dipper's vest) the psychotic triangle disappeared, the galaxy scene he had created going with him.

"One person, Dipper," Mabel said, staring at Dipper's vest where the thermos was safely tucked away. "Maybe he really is here for a reason. We have to warn him..."

A cackling formed in the air, once again. Bill appeared, pointing and laughing at the two. "Wow, you guys really ARE dumb! I had the suspicion that Danny-boy was still alive, but now I know for sure! Where's he, kid? Somewhere near?" The twins glanced at his vest. "Ah, the vest! Hand it over, Pine Tree, and you might not die!"

"We both know that 'might' isn't any sign of hope," Dipper growled, defensively wrapping his vest tighter around himself. "Besides, how could he be in the vest?"

"I'm insulted! You question my all-knowing power?! Where is he, then? Come on, spit it out." Bill wasn't fooled; he just wanted to play a little game. Why not?

"Er... he's..." Mabel began, staring Dipper in the eyes. They weren't telepathic by any means, but just had a bond that held strong enough for non-verbal communication. She hung her head. "He's eating breakfast inside..." Ashamed, she pointed to the Mystery Shack.

_Those kids DO know I can read minds, right...? _Bill thought to himself, figuring he might as well let the two devise a miserable plan that would indefinitely fail in the end. It'd be fun! _Besides, once Phantom is out of the way, everyone is useless. _So, he gave another chuckle for good measure, and flew into the mystery shack. He disappeared back into the mindscape, physical form no longer taking up any of his precious energy.

I guess I should probably explain what Soos was doing at this time. He was silently freaking out, remembering how much bad news the power-bent Dorito chip meant. He was also preparing to protect the twins in the event that Bill tried to attack them right then and there.

"Ok, Mabel, that bought us some time. He can disappear and reappear right in front of our eyes!"

"It's like I just saw a ghost," Soos remarked, redirecting his attention to the two.

"...Dipper! That's it!" Mabel gasped, apparently realizing something important. "Do you think he would really be feeding off of his own energy? All the ghosts working for him... That's where he's getting the power."

"Omigosh, Mabel, you're right! He's becoming a ghost of pure energy, and _that _can definitely not be good." Dipper paced around the dirt, kicking dust up. "Danny's only been asleep for five hours."

"I'd feel really bad trying to wake him up..." Mabel began debating in her mind, grinding her teeth in reality in result.

"But we _need _him!"

"Dipper, you saw the condition he was in! He's in no condition to do anything!"

"Gah, I'm sure he wouldn't be too angry! After all, I read about ghosts, and they all have obsessions. His seems to be protection-"

"Hmm. Looks like there were no ghosts in the Mystery Shack after all," Bill cut in, not caring whatsoever that he had just so rudely cut Dipper off. "The second I catch whiff of that Phantom, he's dead meat. ...I mean ectoplasm. I guess he's more of a mix though, isn't he?"

"Well, he's clearly not here, so you can just move on along," Mabel said, rushing the words as quickly as she could.

"Oh, no. I think you two are going to lead me to him. I'll just keep a close eye on you until then." So, Bill waited patiently floating in the air. Everyone just sort of had an awkward stare-down for a minute.

Finally, Dipper couldn't take it. The demon may mess with him and his family, but this time he was messing with all human lives, and Danny's. He wasn't very sure he considered him a human. Scratch that: he WAS sure he didn't consider him a human. Nobody could hold his abilities, so there was no possible way that Danny was the same as him or any other normal boy. There was a chance that Dipper was sort of jealous of his power. Superheroes had always interested him, but he'd always envied them. It wasn't _his _fault he didn't have any cool, natural abilities. One thing he had, though, was his incredible mind, and no way some mock Illuminati was going to defeat it. "Get lost, Bill. You know there's no way we're going to give him to you! Sure you may have a physical form, but it's weak! Your own power won't sustain yourself for long!"

"Haha! You never cease to amuse me, Pine Tree! You think I'm using my _own _energy?" Bill snapped his fingers and an image appeared in the air on a blue, fiery canvas. Projected were at least one hundred ghosts in sci-fi helmets. They appeared to be frying as strong electrical currents overwhelmed them. The human trio gasped.

"You're using ghosts to fuel your own energy?" Dipper asked, understanding almost instantly.

"Huh. You say that as if you think I'm dumb enough to use my own!" He paused in his words, waiting for the kid to understand what this meant. Defeating him would be a very minor victory in his 666 years, but every event was satisfying. Bill didn't even try to lead Mabel and Soos on to understand; they were just muscle, along for the ride.

"That... that means... Mabel, Soos, run!"

"Dipper, no!" Mabel cried out to her brother, refusing to move.

"No way, José!" Soos, although not always the brightest, was very protective of the twins.

"You don't understand. He'll blast us to pieces."

"What are you talking about? He's weak, remember?" Mabel asked, still not catching on.

Dipper sighed. "It means he can wield the power of the ghosts! They're not only giving him a physical form, they're giving him ectoplasmic powers of destruction! The powers Danny has, he has too, and probably more! We're about to get a beating from _one hundred ghosts _and one insane isosceles monster!" He adopted his sister's name for Bill. "We have to go, now! Danny's our only hope, Mabel. We have to keep him safe!" She studied her twin brother's eyes for a moment. Mabel nodded and ran, Dipper close behind and Soos following.

"Boy, this'll be fun!" Bill yelled, chasing after them.

"W-where do we go?" Mabel was out of breath, but desperate for a plan. She snapped. "I-I got it... Remember when...when... Danny was saying s-something about a basement?"

"Y-yeah, but how do we g-get down there?" Dipper began putting his mind to work, but there wasn't anything. He'd never noticed anything strange underneath the mystery shack.

"Dudes, I got it!" Soos exclaimed, picking them both up and sliding under the Mystery Shack deck.

* * *

(I know some of you skipped the bold part at the top, because to be honest, it's usually not very important. One thing though: I changed how the portal worked for this, mainly how it began. I'm skipping the entire gravitational bit because of time.)

Stan was ready. The radioactive goop was in place and the portal was set to open soon. Finally, he would once again be reunited with his brother! He popped open a Pitt in celebration, taking a long sip. Life was good, even if he hadn't patched up everything with Stanford. What was life without a few rough spots, anyways?

* * *

Soos and the kids rolled under the deck and through a hole Soos had found earlier. Next to it was marked "Soos was here" (the hole seen in Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons where Dipper lost his 38 sided die). They crashed through the roof and formed a pile of child and man-baby. Fortunately for the twins, Soos was on the bottom of the stack. Dipper got up and brushed himself off, quickly recovering. He had gotten used to (gravity) falls like that ever since encountering so many supernatural creatures. All the fear, all the intense and utter chaos of Bill chasing them ended.

"W-what?" he said, sounding almost heartbroken. It was more betrayal than anything else. Dipper staggered in a familiar pacing circle, doing a complete 360 before saying anything else. Soos and Mabel had recovered and popped up, too. Everything looked so oddly high-tech for being so oddly low-tech. A giant portal was spinning, activating on equipment that surely had to be from before the 21st century. There were two journals, marked 1 and 2 with a gold six-fingered hand on each. The whole room seemed to be shaking and unstable as pebbles fell down everywhere. The thing that bothered everyone the most was Stan, standing there with nothing to say or do except continue to drink his soda.

Stan knew that they would know about this very quickly when his own twin hopped out, but wanted to save the introductions for a formal meeting. Everything down here was too dangerous for them to deal with. Being the con-man he was, the only way to give him enough time to think of some form of an excuse was to thoughtfully finish his drink.

"I...I..." Dipper stuttered, bringing his journal out of his vest. He walked up, brushing past his grunkle and straight to the other two documentations. "Why, Stan...?" Was all he could manage to spit out.

"It's... like something from a dream," Mabel remarked, nearing the safety glass. She pressed her face up against it and stared at the fluorescent light radiating from the machine.

"...Mr. Pines?" Soos inquired, walking closer to his boss, putting a hand on his shoulder. Stan spit his drink out and dropped the can, startled out of his thoughts.

"I... uh," he started, trying to figure out how to calm them all down.

"_-have an explanation?_" Dipper finished, beginning to feel the steam coming out of his ears. "The two journals... Why do you have them?"

"Look, kid, just found them-and this place-just give me a second to-"

"Dangit, Stan!" Dipper kicked the metal cabinet door for effect. "Why do you have these two journals?"

Soos removed his hand from his idol's shoulder and backed up in awe. "Maybe _he's _the author!"

"Or, he _stole _them from the author!" The boy snapped back.

"Kid, calm down! Can everyone just calm down for a second..."

"Uh, guys?" Mabel backed away from the glass, staring at the big, intangible Bill Cipher emerging from the ground. Everyone ignored her, pressing onward with their argument.

"Why do you have these, Stan?! Why?!"

"It's a long story!" Stan retorted, breaking into a nervous sweat.

"We have the time!" Dipper fumed.

"No we don't!" Mabel ran away from the glass and took her brother's arm with her. She dragged him behind her. "Guys, Bill is hot on our tail! Dipper was right about the ghost powers, too. Good one, bro, but for once, I wish you were wrong!" Dipper regained his footing and ran alongside Mabel. Stan split off from them to the right. Soos froze in place.

"Over here!" Stan shouted. Soos shook off whatever had come over him and ran to his boss. The old man stood in front of a metal wall with a security code on it. It looked like a maximum security safe.

"Why, so you can trick us into a trap?!" Dipper yelled, still keeping up with his sister, only his sister wasn't by his side anymore. She had made a bee-line to her great uncle. "Dangit, Mabel!" He followed after her. Stan quickly dialed in a 11 digit code to the safe. There was a full mind and body scan done on him, and then the door burst open. They entered through the door. Bill was quickly coming at them, looking like he was having some difficulty with his intangibility. The door to the safe closed, securely locking them inside. The room had white padded walls, floors, and ceilings with blue, glowing inscriptions all over. It was kind of like the entire room was made up of mattresses that someone spilled ink on. A few boxes of food and water were piled in the corner, plus some extra oxygen tanks. The room was about 10x10 feet.

"We're... we're safe." Stan chuckled, relieved to hear he words. "Phew."

"Well, I guess we're all exhausted, then! Know what would help?" Mabel glared daggers at her older relative. "Some answers." She curled up against the wall and got comfy for a nice, relaxing story.

Dipper slouched against the wall, rubbing his temples. "_Please,_" was all he said, exasperated. Soos remained silent and sat up straight.

"I guess I can't avoid this anymore..." And so, Stan told them him everything. "Kids, I'm sorry I left you out of this. I just couldn't risk anybody getting hurt. It was my dumb fault, anyways." He sighed. "I'm sorry..."

"I'm sorry I got so mad," Dipper piped up after a few moments. "I... I just couldn't... can't... bear the idea of having no clue about such a big mystery. It's only been what I've been studying all summer long."

"Uh, dudes, I know this is an important moment," Soos began, nervously biting his nails. Everyone turned their heads to look at him. "Wasn't there that insane mind demon outside, though?"

As if on cue, there was a muffled giggle from outside of the safe room. "I'm almost in... These ghost powers really are handy! They're doomed. Once I rid of that Phantom menace, the multiverse is mine for the taking!" Bill spoke to himself, tearing through the inscriptions and protection of the room.

"This place won't hold for much longer," Stan said. Although he was clueless about most of his brother's work, he knew of Bill Cipher and the difficulty he caused Ford. When he scanned Dipper's journal, he read every last thing he could about him. He hadn't too long ago discovered the code to the room they were currently in. "He shouldn't be able to break through... What happened to him?"

"Ghosts. He's half a ghost..." Dipper started.

Mabel finished his sentence for him. "-...and half triangular energy. Like Danny, minus the human part."

"Danny... That kid who was staying with us? He's half of a ghost?" Stan wasn't very bright and didn't put together Phantom and Fenton.

"Uh." Dipper cursed to himself. "Y-yes. He was also that ghost kid you walked in on the other day. He's _both, _you see. Trust me, though! He saved us. He's one of the only good guys."

"Good guys? In what?" Stan asked, sparking curiosity in missing parts of the story for Soos and Mabel, as well.

Dipper sighed. "We don't have much time, but I'll tell you everything I know." So, he spilled. He took the thermos out of his vest and lightly shook it around for emphasis. "He's in here, resting. There wasn't a way to guarantee his safety without some sort of secret containment device. I'm scared that if we take him out, even to fight, he'll be wiped out. We don't have a plan or an escape route. He's humanity's last hope." Dipper said the final sentence, realizing the weight of the situation. Not only humanity's last hope, but every single living thing ever to exist's last hope. So far, two hours and 48 minutes had passed. There was a video-game-sounding noise that told them the inscriptions were powering down, as well as the color fading from an electric blue to a dull grey.

"We're out of time!" Stan bust through the safe door, leading the group in a sprint to get away. Bill, glorified in his own work, entered the chamber. He was slightly shocked when nobody appeared to be in there. He hadn't tried to read any of their minds, because he couldn't. Just a second ago, the signs blocking him from entering also cut off any contact. There wasn't any point in getting upset, he knew, so he searched for them around the basement. All four had entered the portal area, making sure to steer clear from any electricity blowing out of the creation like lightning. They took cover under a table with a tablecloth covering it. Silently, they devised separate plans in their own heads, but none of them seemed like they would work. There was nothing else to do but figure a way out, though, so that's what they did. Bill tried his best to read their minds, but the power of the symbols had somehow stuck to their minds, encrypting their thoughts and locations.

A small voice came from the thermos in Dipper's hand. "Hello...?" Fearfully, they all stared at the device. If everything they worked so hard for ended because of this ghost... "Anyone there?" Nobody spoke for a good couple minutes, until the sound came back. "Helloooo?"

"Shut up, Danny," Dipper whispered, hoping he would hear him.

There was no more sound until Stan's watch beeped and began a countdown. The portal was opening in one minute. "Oh, oh no... I don't want my brother to walk out and see this mess..."

"If he's as clever as you say he is, I'm sure he'll figure something out-whoa!" Gravity began to undo itself. The table floated upwards. Everyone loosely tried to control themselves, but it was no use. Bill was there, instantly noticing them.

"You know, you gave me quite the scare!" Bill laughed. "Guess I overestimated you! Table tricks, pfft." The ceiling began crumbling. There was barely enough concrete left to support the shack. Bill looked up at the beautiful destruction and turned intangible to avoid getting hit.

_"Portal opening in five, four, three, two, one..._" Stan's watch spoke. The portal blast everyone against the wall, including Bill, despite his intangibility. The thermos dropped as gravity regained its place in the world, releasing Danny. Before he could do anything, a beam fell on his head. He limply fell to the floor. Ghosts flew in from all angles, subduing all their new human captives: Stanford, Stanley, Soos, Dipper, and Mabel. Vlad grabbed Danny, dragging him by his neck back to the base.

Stanford didn't exactly get the warmest welcome back to his dimension, did he?


	16. Chapter 16

**Aye, this introduction will probably serve as an apology for my lack of writing skills. I visualize things better than I write them, and I'm barely not 14. Sorry for a way-late update (hehe, that rhymed).**

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_Ghosts flew in from all angles, subduing all their new human captives: Stanford, Stanley, Soos, Dipper, and Mabel. Vlad grabbed Danny, dragging him by his neck back to the base._

_Stanford didn't exactly get the warmest welcome back to his dimension, did he_?

Danny woke up mid-air. His neck was tightening, barely letting enough oxygen pass through from the rough grip of Vlad Master's grip. Danny tried to rip his hand off, but it was no use. He wasn't suffocating; no, he was just uncomfortable. The older Halfa sniveled at his attempt. "F for effort, Daniel. You and me both know that I'm stronger, therefore, this is useless." The boy growled to himself and crossed his arms. He looked at the ground, which was probably 150 feet away. Danny gulped and saw his arms, realizing he was a human.

"I'm going ghost!" Danny tried to turn into his alter-ego, but alas, nothing happened. "...I said... ahem... I'm going ghost!" He tried again, and once that didn't work, he tried again. His knees bent a bit higher and his hands were in fists as if something were to happen.

"Must I really explain this to you?" Vlad sighed, rubbing his temples with his free hand. "We injected a serum into your arm to prevent you from transforming. You're still weak, but after last time... I see your girlfriend isn't here to protect you. You're not going to escape again."

_Want to bet on it? _"She's not my girlfriend!" Danny's cheeks reddened. He rubbed his arm where the needle had poked through and tried one more time to transform. "And Tucker was there, too!"

"Ah, yes. The geek. What an impressive team you have there, Daniel," Vlad said, clearly unimpressed. Something was weird about him. There was no grinning, not even a malevolent smirk. Danny realized what it was: he sounded exhausted. There was only small talk going on. He didn't really know any ways to play on this, so he just ignored it. Cheery 'uncle' Vlad was gone, he guessed, which meant his temper was shorter than usual.

"What did Bill offer you, anyways? Galaxies? Worlds? Leadership?"

"Something much more valuable."

Danny snorted. "I didn't think there was anything more valuable to you than ruling."

"He offered me your mother, and the death of that imbecile Jack Fenton," Vlad said, still not having any stupid , evil grin plastered on his face. "Oh, and your dimension. I forgot about that."

Danny froze, then tried once again to go ghost. "Mom? You crazed...power-hungry... FRUIT LOOP!" He held his hands up to the side of Vlad's head, trying to unleash a storm of ectoplasmic fury open him. Nothing happened.

"Really, Daniel, this is pathetic. Even for you."

Danny huffed. "Are we there yet?" He re-crossed his arms. How was he going to protect Amity Park now? He wasn't even going to be able to protect his own parents, Jazz, or his best friends. Amity Park, who had complete trust in him, must have been scared out of their minds. _Three days left... _Rang in his mind. _I can't do this... I can't... there's no way... Everyone is going to probably die, or be a slave, and it's going to be my stupid fault. No way out... there's no way out... _

Stanford had tried kicking, hitting, yelling, and begging, but it was all useless. His arms and legs were restrained by a ghost, and they had threatened to put a gag over his mouth if he didn't shut up. Ford being angry had never helped anything. He was being carried by a ghost named Torsure, who was the extremely agreeable ghost of torturing. Torsure finally convinced Ford to calm down, but couldn't control the rage he felt. Stanley had probably made a tear in the dimension, and he was sure Bill must have gotten to it by now if there was one. It all seemed hopeless.

Stanley was madly shouting insane things, trying to convince them he was mentally insane and needed his medication. Finally, a ghost had just overshadowed him in attempt to make him shut up. The two floated in peace, no matter how much Stanley struggled to keep control over his mind.

Dipper and Mabel were both being held by a big ghost with large muscles and a boxy figure. They didn't dare to attempt to escape and just played a little charade game with each other to try and figure out how they were going to get out of this alive.

Meanwhile, while the Pines were attempting to fight and think, Soos was having a pretty chill conversation with the guy who was holding him. "You know, I can change into anything."

"Really, Amorpho? That's so cool, dude. Oh! Oh! Can you do a slice of pizza?"

Amorpho turned into a giant slice of pizza. "Violà!"

Soos almost took a bite out of him, but stopped himself. "Whoa. Can you do..." The two explored Amorpho's abilities as they floated in the air back to the base.

Finally, the six of them were roughly tossed into a cell (with the exception of Soos and Danny: Soos was lightly set down, and roughly was an understatement for Danny), about the size of the enchanted, padded room they had been in earlier, without the comfort of the mattress walls or the glowing symbols. They were locked up. Danny kept quietly to himself in the corner, rubbing his delicate head that he had landed on. Vlad had almost snapped his neck! Soos was mumbling to himself a mental list of what he wanted Amorpho to turn into. The Pines explained things to their new Grunkle Ford. It turned into fight between Ford and Stan.

"This... this is chaos! Stanley, I can't believe you!" Ford pressed his finger firmly into his twin's chest. "This is _your _fault."

"_My _fault?!" Stan narrowed his eyes, swatting his brother's hand away from him. "_My _fault?! I just wanted to see you! I didn't even know any of this was going to _happen! _I didn't mean for what happened to _you _to happen!"

"Now Bill has it... now we're all screwed!" Ford nervously curled up his hand into a six-fingered fist, then released it, then balled it up into a fist again. He continued to do this to try and vent out his energy. "No... It's not over... We just need...guh..." Stanley's twin mumbled to himself.

"...Bill has what, Great Uncle Ford?" Dipper was sure that there was much more to Ford's story that Stan hadn't told them, especially the part about the journals, but he knew that it wasn't the time to ask about it. Then again... If they were going to die, there wasn't a better time to learn about the journals... Dipper tried to rationalize asking about the journals, but no. Escaping was the highest priority.

"He... er..." Ford threw his hands up, exasperated. He was just so pissed off! "Guh!" He appreciated the effort of his brother trying to put together a little family reunion for the two of them, but in all honesty, it was the last thing he needed. The fight he had just came out of before he stepped out of the portal

"Uh... sorry?" Dipper said, not wanting the old man to have a bad opinion of him. I mean, he was only his idol.

"He...he... well,... a tear... In the dimensions." Ford's tone dialed down to 'lightly going to rip all of your heads off.' He didn't want to elaborate, so he tried to get off of the topic. "Remind me of your names, again?"

"Dipper," he said, leaning back against the cold, concrete wall. He couldn't take it anymore. The man in front of him was _the author of the journals. _"My name is Dipper." The boy was all worn out from all of the secrets for the week, with Danny and all. "How about we... um... take a little break... while Great Uncle Stanford tells us all about his journals?"

"No. It is important we find a way out of here. Is anyone here an expert on ghosts?" Grunkle Ford looked around.

"You could say that I'm an expert..." Danny rubbed his pale arm and looked down at the ground. His hair drooped over his eyes. Though he had a dozen ideas on how to escape, there was no solution that didn't involve him turning into a ghost. He tried to form the white rings around his waist, but it was to no avail. There wasn't even a spark.

"Who are you, boy?" Stanford rubbed his chin suspiciously towards the kid. There was an unnatural-no, _supernatural_ feeling from the teen.

"Danny Fenton, though you're probably looking for Danny Phantom: Hero of Amity Park," Danny said as he unhopefully banged his head back against the wall. His hands were planted in his jean's pockets. "I never should have fallen asleep. Now look where we are! Stuck in this room surrounded by my worst enemies." He sniffled. Grunkle Ford put his hand on his shoulder supportively.

Dipper rolled his eyes and looked away.

**It's kind of funny that I want to end this story. Here I was really enthusiastic... then Gravity Falls has one more episode left, and here I am, sulking around for the rest of my life. Oh well, I think it's smart to end the show off before it starts to suck.**

**Sorry to say, but the story is up for adoption... my child. :c Treat her kindly (it's a she) if you choose to carry it on. Hopefully you'll do better than I have.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Guess this story is still in progress. Might as well get it to 50k words. Wouldn't that be something?**

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_"Who are you, boy?" Stanford rubbed his chin suspiciously towards the kid. There was an unnatural-no, supernatural feeling from the teen._

_"Danny Fenton, though you're probably looking for Danny Phantom: Hero of Amity Park," Danny said as he unhopefully banged his head back against the wall. His hands were planted in his jean's pockets. "I never should have fallen asleep. Now look where we are! Stuck in this room surrounded by my worst enemies." He sniffled. Grunkle Ford put his hand on his shoulder supportively._

_Dipper rolled his eyes and looked away._

Dipper wasn't jealous, per se... I mean, it wasn't like he hadn't been trying to catch his new Grunkle's eye for the past while, and here he was showing some degree of acceptance to Danny. He wasn't even human, much less related to him. The 12 year old blushed, considering the possibility that the halfa had lied to them and hid some of his powers, like mind reading. This town had been getting to his head to much, and paranoia was already blossoming in his head. Gravity Falls was great fuel for his theories and conspiracies, which only made his sister go more insane.

"We're all screwed until my powers go back online," Danny growled, rubbing the anti-ghost-needle-injection-site. His head hung low. He had failed to protect. Sam's obsession theory was beginning to prove itself true as eyelids drooped over baby blue eyes in defeat. "I'm... I'm sorry. I could have done better, the opportunity for sleep... It just looked so good..."

"Dan, was it?" Stanford recalled, figuring a stub nickname would do. The nickname was a friendly gesture, but all it earned him was a direct glare in his eyes from a pair of completely normal human eyes. It wasn't until then that he recognized the almost dead look trapped behind him. Ford gasped, coming to the realization that he was a ghost.

"Danny. Danny Fenton," he grumbled. "I'm not Dan. I never will be." The grunkle readjusted his glasses and looked over at the kids, who only shrugged as a response. The teen forced his eyes to shut and focused as hard as he could to become his other half. Survival was necessary, and he had gotten this family into this whole mess. Danny shifted uncomfortably, waiting for Ford to ask the question like he knew he would.

"Who's Dan?" The curiosity was rising and the elder man couldn't help but ask. It was his nature.

"Me, ten years in the future. He killed my entire family and my teacher." Danny considered Sam and Tucker his family, so he included them in that statement. "Clockwork, he gave me them back. They were preserved, and I had the chance to turn my life around from some earlier events in school. Dan exists in a Fenton Thermos somewhere in-between the beginning of time and the end of time. I owed Clockwork to do this for him, so I suppose I must be here for a reason. Dan is a full ghost, merged with the ghost half of the guy who threw me in here. That fruit loop plus me? Infinite power."

Ford readjusted his glasses again. It was a habit he hadn't overcome from seeing the impossible and making sure his lens weren't blurred. "Clockwork. If he is as trustworthy and good of a guy as you says he is, I don't think you were sent here to die. Can he see into the future?"

"Well, of course... That's kind of what being the lord of time entails." Danny tilted his head in confusion, not seeing how any of this was relevant.

Dipper caught on and was eager to say what the author he so admired was implying. The millisecond after Danny had finished his sentence, Dipper began to speak at a rate barely understandable. It wasn't much help that the words were coded in his excitement, as well. "Oh,well,hewouldn'thavesentyouhereonasuicidemissionifhehelpedyoupreviously,unlesshewantstodestroyourdimension,whichwouldbeseriouslynotcool..." Ford held his hand up to stop the string of words. Dip looked down at his feet, hoping he had impressed him.

"I _think _that Dipper was trying to say that you weren't sent here on a suicide mission, Danny," Stanford stated reassuringly, although he wasn't sure if he had gotten through to the boy. Danny still had his head tilted down. "Hey, look here. Look at me." He squinted, but slowly moved his chin upwards. Ford rested his hand back on his shoulder. Dipper bit his lip, unsure of the action. He certainly wasn't getting any attention from the one guy he looked up to in life. "You're going to be okay. You hear me? Clockwork sent you here to help, not to die. He can see the future, and he can see that it's bright for you."

_As long as I don't look into the light... _That's when it struck him. It wasn't that Danny was dumb; actually, just the opposite. His grades were only slipping because of his crime-fighting. Maybe he thought that not saving the day just this once would be easier. Clockwork could see every single moment in time, and he required Danny to get this deed done. His chest filled with a fiery determination. "Let's get out of here. My genetic structure has inactive ghost genes that are itching to shoot something with ectoplasm. Let's be heroes." He rose up, giving off a fateful, heart-filled, "I'm going ghost!"

Nothing happened. Danny sighed and his posture slumped, but now his hero complex was disallowing him to go back to lying down, no matter the temptation of the hard surface.

"Ahh, was something supposed to happen?" Ford absentmindedly wondered aloud.

"Was 'sposed to become Phantom," he sighed, examining the walls of the room.

Mabel gave Danny a hug. "I think you can be a hero without your awesome alter-ego, for what it's worth."

Danny smiled down at her. "Thanks, Mabel."

Dipper waited impatiently with his back arched against the wall. It wasn't like he'd ever needed attention, (or really wanted it) but these were two people that mattered to him. A bit of recognition wouldn't have damaged his feelings by this point in time. His emotion was masked well, as long as nobody asked him to speak. In that case, his hormones would glitch and backfire on him and he would get flared up. So, he just bit the inside of the cheek and attempted to formulate a plan. _Think, Dipper. You're trapped in a box with nothing but 5 humans. _Lines of math trailed in his head, but they weren't very advanced. It was just about the amount of force you would need to break through a wall, but he discontinued the pointless thoughts. Bill was smart. "I wonder if this thing is sound-proof." Maybe he could aggravate some ghosts into opening the door for a fight, or convince them that they had a better deal.

"We're probably being monitored as we speak," Ford remarked, having been trapped in supernatural prisons before. "You may be on to something, though. If we knew who was watching us... Hmm, I haven't studied much about ghosts."

"I have. I...er, she, had a theory about ghost complexes." Danny tried to think of an easy way to explain this, though his mind was thrown off by a grey, raised brow rising above the glasses line. Except, this time, it had been from a different old man.

"She? That's the most interesting word I've heard since we've been in this dump," Stan remarked. "More on that, please?"

"Stanley, now is not the time. We have to escape," Ford said impatiently. "Continue about this theory, Danny?" With that, Stan continued in his crossed-arm position. His limbs ached from old age and getting dragged across the sky for twenty minutes. Sue him if he wanted an interesting story, he doubted that he had much time left, anyways.

"Each ghost has an obsession with something. She said that mine was being a hero, or something along those lines, since I was so protective of her." A rosy red rushed up his face and Danny scrambled his brain for an explanation. "I mean... er, she was just a human. Is just a human? Have I been talking in past tense this entire time? Heh... I mean, we were friends-"

Stanley chuckled. "Sure you were, kid."

"-and, ah, just didn't want to see her get hurt." He glanced down at his feet and looked up expectantly. The looks were either of confusion or of Stanley about to burst out laughing. The only one unnoticed was Dipper, hunched up against the wall, deep in thought.

"If you take this theory of your _girlfriend's..._" Dipper paused, allowing the term to sink in for a moment. Stanley snickered. "...Then, we might be able to appeal after all. If we knew who was watching us, that is."

Danny shut his eyes and tried to remember what he'd seen when they were outside of the room. "There was a desk.. or something..."

"Was it mahogany?"

"Light brown?"

"Brownish brown?"

"Black?"

"Cardboard," Danny answered, bursting into giggles. Had Bill been stupid enough to put the one and only _Box Ghost _on duty to guard one of the most dangerous ghosts in the multiverse? "I know who's guarding us-" Just then, an icy blue breath escaped his mouth, interrupting his dialogue.

"What was that?" Ford tried to catch it with his hands, fascinated with the ghostly physics. It didn't work. Danny blinked. One second his eyes were a sweet baby blue, the next they were a dangerous green; more toxic than a toxic substance itself. "Your eyes! They're green." The old man began to put the pieces together. "Are your powers returning?"

"Let's find out. I'm going ghost!" Danny yelled his battle cry. Slowly, two rings formed around him and transformed him into the ghost fighting superhero he-and Sam-had come to love. His sleek jumpsuit had felt dusty after so long without usage. Thrilled, he tested a shot of ectoplasm against the wall. It was weak and didn't even dent it. He tested his intangibility. Nothing. Invisibility. Nothing. Overshadowing? Nope. Flight? Nada. Ice core? Useless. Danny knew that there was a .01% chance his ghostly wail would work, but he didn't want to risk it inside of a small room. It made no sense that the only power he had was ectoplasm, since that was a later power he developed. "Looks like we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way." A green box formed in his hand out of ectoplasm. "Hey Boxy. I know you have a plethora of boxes in there, but they're all dumb and dull. Wouldn't you like this one?" He paused. "Too bad. All mine."

The door burst open, and one very ticked off dead man entered. "I AM THE BOX GHOST! Hand over the contraband so I may, er, do things to it!" He blushed in a ghostly way, and quickly added, "Like, stack it on my other boxes!"

"Sure, that's what you meant." Danny smirked.

"Just give me the box!"

"If you say so..." Danny launched the box out of his hand and into the weaker man, knocking him on the head in just the right place to make him fall first against the wall, then to the ground.

Ford led them on their way out. It was creepy that he knew his way around here so well, and everyone silently made a mental note to ask him about it later. After encountering a few weak ghosts that they managed to shove out of the way, they came to a portal. It was well-guarded by eight ghostly figures. Without consulting his team, Danny ran into the room with a ghostly bubble covering him. He spread his arms out and the green bubble spread around him, knocking all the other ghosts into the wall. "Now! Go go go!" The six of them ran through the portal hurriedly, with Danny the last one to enter.

_Glad to see the ghost zone is green as ever. And really empty. _Everyone turned towards Danny. This was his realm.

"Welcome to the ghost zone."


	18. Chapter 18

**For those of you wondering if miracles exist, here I am now typing this. If your review is to remind me that my writing and/or story sucks, lol trust me I know. Thanks for reading in the first place, because CRAPPPpppappp I am at like 17k views and jazzed to the bone.**

_**PREVIOUSLY**_

_Everyone turned towards Danny. This was his realm._

_"Welcome to the ghost zone."_

"What... what is this?" Ford was not hard to excite. Though he would never admit it, there was always something he found absolutely thrilling about being a transdimensional traveler for the past thirty years. Whether it was small, like the millions of new languages that he discovered could be clicked by tongue, or comforting, as in common deformities that left others with uncountable amounts of fingers, there was always something there. However, this was its own type of special.

"The ghost zone, geesh. Did traveling through dimensions damage your old man ears, Stanford?" Stanley stated sarcastically. He stretched his arms out and enjoyed not having to stand up.

Dipper stood in an awe that was almost identical to his grunkle's, except more extreme. He kicked around and ended up pedaling into a backflip. Soos and Mabel were rattled equally, but not enough to strip them of their personalities. They pushed each other into the air until they hovered feet apart. Danny had to take a moment to rub his forehead. He was beginning to get a splitting headache from the realization that his teammates were even worse than Sam and Tucker.

He was too deep into an unexplored area of the ghost zone to know what any of the doors opened to, but he had learned that the color of the sky indicated different things. Luckily, the sky here was a blood orange, which marked it mostly uninhabitable. The doors through here would be empty for the most part. He mustered up all the strength he could to go into a fly-sprint, snatching up an empty, nearby door and sticking it in front of the ghost portal. Reinforcements would be coming by momentarily. Using his ectoplasm blast, he molded a key lock into the door. His DNA molded into the lock and he turned his hand inside of the door to the right, burning remnants of his flesh and taking away what power he had in him to supply the ghostly barrier that would keep it shut. Green and red blood swirled around in the wood.

"What did you do?" Ford asked, back in a state of work. For the most part, everyone else had calmed down and were around Danny to formulate a plan.

"I just locked that door over their portal. They can't come out now unless I unlock it, or if the door is broken, which I doubt will happen. It zaps from my own personal power supply. Vlad will have to be the one to blast it," Danny replied, hoping they understood. It was all the same if they didn't get it, either.

"Won't they break it down at some point, though?" Mabel asked, biting the inside of her cheek while looking at the door. She didn't want to see Danny get hurt.

"I can mentally unlock it. This is only to buy us some time." Danny's teeth grit. More and more blasts of ectoplasm were being forced against the door, and he could most certainly feel it. His skin turned even more pale as more of his precious ecto-blood was being transferred to the door. Visibly, he looked dizzy and sick.

"Danny, this isn't a good idea..." Dipper started, but was cut off by Danny's hand.

"If... if too much is zapped from Phantom... I have two power supplies, remember?" He offered a weak smile and transformed back. The two rings seemed to take their time to travel up and down his waist. Someone was ramming something into the door now, causing an explosion of pain to his ribs. It wasn't easy to hide, but Danny managed, assuring himself that the door would be gone soon. "But I don't want to faint in the middle of a jailbreak. We just need to go. Now." They all began flying through the ghost zone, zig-zagging about in case any ghosts were on their tail. Danny's human body slowly lost it's tan, paling him to the tone of Sam. He was losing blood and the woozy feeling wouldn't go away. It was the way the door was engineered that allowed him to continue in consciousness with such little amounts of the precious liquid. More ectoblasts and teeth (was someone biting the door now?) left his body nearly in shambles. He coughed up saliva all over his hand, wondering when they would finally make it to their destination.

"Grunkle Stan, why aren't you fazed at all by any of this?" Mabel asked, generally curious on how her uncle didn't happen to find any of this amazing. Plus, she needed to say something to keep her mind off of Danny's condition.

"Honey, my ex-wife may have been the devil, but she sure showed me heaven, and let me tell you-that was a truly funky dimension." Stan offered a giggle for the memories, but was quickly whacked over the head by Ford. The rest of the flight went by in awkward silence until they reached the Gravity Falls portal.

"We can't go back right now; not until we have a plan." Danny clenched his jaw and rubbed his teeth together. That seriously annoyed Ford, but he kept his mouth shut, considering that it was probably the only way Danny was dealing with the pain. "The sooner, the better. I need to take that door down before Phantom slips into a coma."

"How does that work? Is he half-possessing your body?" Ford wondered.

"No. I died," Danny said, rather quietly. He still had trouble coping with what exactly he was, although he held little shame for being a ghost. "But that is irrelevant. We need to go as soon as humanly possible. Does anyone here have experience in escaping the cops? Not to judge, but..." All eyes immediately fell on Stan.

"Hey, there! I haven't had to break free from the cops in at least two months. Cut me some slack." The stares intensified, finally making Stanley give in with a loud sigh. "Fine. I have a shack set up in a cave on the opposite end of town. It'll take awhile to get there undetected. Some of Ford's gadgets are stashed there because they were taking up too much space in my bedroom."

"Okay. Uhh... I came from this portal earlier and it dropped me 50 feet out of the sky, so I'll go through first as Phantom and catch you guys with an ecto-shield." Concentrating, Danny broke the lock blocking the other ghostly party from entering the zone. It felt like twenty hundred ton weights had just lifted off his shoulders. The blood invested in the door returned and rushed through him, giving him a new sense of hope and strength. The past few times he had done this only in practice, but taking the locked door down this time definitely took the take for the biggest relief in the multiverse. The searing of ghost energy managed to leave scars scattered on his body that wouldn't be healing anytime soon.

Danny let the two rings overtake him into his ghastly form, giving an aviator's salute before he dove headfirst into the portal. He turned through the branches and regained his own center of zero-gravity in the air. More of his powers were returning. Directly underneath where he had popped out of the portal, he formed a large half-dome of ecto-energy to catch his human friends. A few seconds later, Dipper seemed to have been kicked out of the portal. He was sweating more than usual, a sign that someone had to force him to exit. Mabel followed shortly after, landing directly on top of her brother. The two scampered to the edges of the foggy green platform to avoid getting landed on by much heavier-set men.

Stan came by after, then Soos and Ford. The group was lowered to the ground. Danny's arm felt strained by the weight, but he ignored it. The words 'fate of the world' kept flashing through his head, driving him through whatever pain he felt. They all were quick on their feet once moving. Stan led the way to his makeshift hut.

Mabel yawned about 20 minutes into their hike, eyelids fluttering in a droopy fashion. "It's been so long... Are we there yet?"

"For the billionth time, Mabel, no," Dipper growled. His sister kept pulling him out of his thoughts and was upsetting him. Her mindless fun was usually refreshing, but it couldn't block out the worry he had. They needed a plan and his flesh and blood was being an obstacle.

"It'll be a gazillion more times if it's any further," Mabel loosely debated, stretching her arms out into the air.

"A gazillion isn't a number," Dipper countered.

"I'll make it a number."

"The fact that you have to say the word/letter a before it discounts it as a number."

"I'll show you a gazillion, then." Mabel waited for opposition from her brother, but he only huffed and pulled his cap down further over his eyes. "Sorry. I'm just so tired, and you guys are _so _quiet. We should take a break soon."

Danny rubbed his temples again, trying to block out the headache from the bickering siblings. "Mabel, you can ride on my back if you'd like."

"Can I?!" Her eyes lit up. She didn't realize how much Danny wished the offer would shut her up and how much he wished that she would've politely declined rather than jumping right to it, but he let her piggyback anyways. Somewhat reluctantly, he nodded. "Hooray!" Mabel squealed, hopping up onto his back.

"Oof." He jumped into the air and floated to keep a nice feeling of weightlessness. Danny's hands tightened around Mabel's legs around his hips to keep her arms around his neck from cutting off his air supply.

So it continued this way for the next three hours until they had finally made it to Stan's den in the woods, but needless to say, it was not what they had expected.

**May or may not update again. If I do, congrats, more miracles.**


	19. Chapter 19

**_PREVIOUSLY_**

_So it continued this way for the next three hours until they had finally made it to Stan's den in the woods, but needless to say, it was not what they had expected._

"Grunkle Stan? What is this?" Mabel's jaw slacked open, exposing her braces to the fresh air. Much to Danny's relief, the girl hopped off his back and ran around to go touch things.

"What happened to being 'too tired to move?'" Dipper said halfheartedly. The necessity of sleep was taking a toll on his brain, causing a soft slur and woozy feeling to his words.

"I hitched a ride from a ghost. Ghost energy must work like Mabel Juice or something!" Mabel beamed, imagining at that very moment being back at the shack without some monster chasing them. The idea seemed so welcoming, yet so _fake. _Nothing would ever just cease to happen in Gravity Falls. Sighing, Mabel cut off the thought before the fantasy could expand. Was this was growing up felt like?

"Mabel Juice?" Danny cocked an eyebrow, though he really didn't care. The ground looked so inviting.

Probably because it was made out of beds. Surrounding them was some sort of late 80's disco mistake. The walls and floor were conveniently mattresses, but that wasn't the main attraction. The ceiling had a disco lamp that seemed to be scientifically golden. It beeped as Danny got closer to examine it, flashing brilliant colors in a disco-ball sequence formation.

"Why do machines hate me so much?" Danny growled. He peeked further to what he could see without actually touching the device.

Ford and Stan were having a spat outside about heaven knows what, and only now entered the room. Stan squinted like he'd never been here before. "This room looks a lot cooler when you're drunk," he mumbled, then included as an afterthought, "and partying with Manataurs who brought some hot babes."

"You're always drunk, Stan." Ford looked sharply over at his brother, shaking his head. Something in their argument really had ticked him off. He began to twitch his fingers (yes, all six) and showed other signs of annoyance.

Mabel cleared her throat, trying to make some sort of break in the awkwardness lurking in the air. That didn't seem to slice through the barrier between Stan and Ford, so she tried a different tactic: direct approach. "...So, um. Let's talk about something. Books, unicorns, the ghosts trying to take over the entirety of the multiverse...What you two were talking about outside?"

"I vote the last one, although unicorns are a close runner-up," Soos proclaimed, clueless as usual.

Ford ran his hand through his rough hair. Feelings had not been what he'd majored in. "It doesn't matter. Let's get a plan for our next strike ready." His lower lip pouted out and he reached back for a map sticking out of his bag. A pen that had been lodged between his ear and forehead slipped down into his hand as he began to work.

Danny tried to submerge the recurring headache. He just wanted to take a rest, but he knew he wouldn't get to be that fortunate until this was all over. "Stanford, you know you're wrong, right?"

Ford lifted his head. Dipper curiously watched the two, trying to calculate the direction this would take. The boy's head lifted from his rested position so his chin could rest on his hand, and you could practically taste the skepticism forming on his face.

"I haven't been wrong in a long time, Danny." He stood, replacing the pen behind his ear.

Danny snorted. "Why is that so hard to believe? I get you're a genius and all, but I think you've been wrong five times today, at least." Stan's head perked up, intrigued by this seemingly oncoming fight. A Cheshire grin formed on his face.

"Like when?" Ford tried to see Danny's logic, but he couldn't. He didn't want to.

"Like when you began to hide secrets. When you decided against telling us how you knew the ghost tower so well, that was untrustworthy. That's usually how basic human interaction works." Danny's arms crossed, wondering how his pep-talk would affect the old man.

"That's... That's irrelevant! So was what we were talking about outside!" His teeth grit, unable to let his secrets fly openly. Who knew who was watching?

"You're irrelevant," Stanley quipped, giving his twin a sideways stare.

"Stanley!" They looked at each other and communicated through their eyes. After their little ESP twin moment, the two nodded curtly and went back to work.

"So neither of you will tell us? Great. Three days until Bill attacks, and everyone will be toast because we are so dysfunctional..." Danny flopped down on the matress floor and turned onto his side. His hair lopped into his face. He groaned, remembering that he was supposed to get it cut the day after he left to this town. "I guess this means you're taking first watch, Ford?"

Stanford, who was already absorbed in his work, confirmed with a, "Mhmm." Danny decided to accept that as a yes and prepared to go to sleep. His stomach interrupted the process with a growl that echoed about the mattresses.

"Oh. Right. Anybody else hungry?" Danny flew up in the air and stretched, flexing his muscles and trying to readjust himself so he wasn't sore.

"Did we even pack any food?" Dipper wondered, tearing through his backpack. The search was unfruitful.

"You guys must be really bad travelers..." The two ransacked every physical container in the little cave and found to pitiful energy bars. "Dinnertime."

"I thought I packed more of those," Mabel said, investigating the objects. They'd found it in her frog backpack, after all.

"Was I not supposed to eat those?" Soos timidly wiped the crumbs off his face.

"Well, it would have been nice if you had _shared_," Danny mumbled. "If I hadn't stayed awake in biology when we were learning about the human digestive system, I would phase my hand into your stomach and grab them right now..."

"We could split the bars," Mabel suggested.

"There's six of us," Danny whimpered. He did not want just a third of a bar, and though he was really trying to save this world and not be selfish, his stomach begged otherwise. So he decided to use his brain. "Stan's asleep already, collapsed over there on mattress #6." He gestured over to the sleeping old man, snoring peacefully. "Just don't say anything. Obviously, Dipper and Mabel eat since they're the youngest-"

"-Especially Dipper-"

"-Great, so I can have all of Mabel's since I'm younger than her-"

"-_and _Stanford and I will get a half since Soos has already had his fill." Dipper broke the energy bars in half, giving one of the divisions to each of Dipper, Mabel, and Ford. "Stanford, how do we shut off that infernal disco ball? It hasn't shut up since we've come in here."

"It's a supernatural tracker. When supernaturals are around, it tracks them."

"Great crash course you gave there on it. If I revert to my human form, will it let me get some shuteye? Big day tomorrow. And the day after that..."

"Yes, I suppose that should do it. My knowledge was limited before I became an inter-dimensional criminal, and I hadn't studied meta-genes and how they could be twisted to recognize and transfo-"

"So that's an 'affirmative?'" Danny said the last bit there in a metal robotic tone. He flopped down on his stomach and snuggled into the mattress. It was very cushiony for being as old as it was. It was so comfy... and he was so tired. His tooth layers detached as they unhinged into a satisfying yawn. "Who's taking first watch?" Danny babbled softly, a few seconds away from drifting into dreamland.

His ghost sense really chose marvelous times to go off. "Nevermind." He debated the importance of the situation, but eventually decided on rising. Slightly enraged, he shouted, "Whoever of Bill's goons is here is going to REALLY wish that their dimensional cut was bigger than the scar they're about to get!"

"I find scars endearing." Kitty floated down from the ceiling, followed by Johnny 13. Shadow came in through the narrow cave opening.

"Oh, then babe, I've got some battle wounds to show you... It's just your luck they're all over, too," Johnny 13 flirted, waggling his eyebrows at his girl.

Dipper scrambled over to his backpack to retrieve his new ghost hunting weapon: the bazooka of a Fenton Foamer. Ford grabbed his beloved triangle gun at the speed of light and trained it on the two, not noticing Shadow until it disarmed both him and his would-be protégé. Danny's hand glowed a toxic green, even in his human form. He changed into Phantom and the beam lit up stronger.

"I swear, Johnny..." Danny aimed his other hand at Shadow, who was being more dodgy than normal.

"Chill, Phantom. I'm not here to make you suffer." The male ghost extended a hand amd exposed his fake grin, obviously excited for something.

"Like you could," Danny spat sourly, a bitter feeling filling his mouth. "Just tell me what you want."

"I want to offer you a partnership. Bill cut our deal down to land the size of Rhode Island, so we split. It was some debacle over me and Kitty making out in the Janitor's closet too often."

"More where that came from, hun," Kitty whispered into his ear. She planted a kiss on his neck and winked at him.

"How did you find us?" Danny was skeptical. If these two idiots could find them, who knew what else was on its way?

"Shadow's locked into your scent."

"What are the terms of your partnership?" Danny was still suspicious, and he had every right to be.

"We give you information and you give us a place to crash." (Insert Bart Allen: doesn't that sound so crash?)

"I'll consult my team." Ford, Dipper, and Danny huddled. The other three had managed to sleep through the showdown.

"We don't know anything..." Ford started. Dipper was bound to agree with his Grunkle.

"You don't know these two. They could easily be double crossing us," Danny argued, peeking over his shoulder at the couple.

"But we need the information." Dipper crossed his arms. This was a bad situation.

"Ignorance is bliss," Danny pointed out, hoping that it would change the minds of the two members of the most stubborn family in Gravity Falls.

"Not in a war! Look, we need the war plans. Need, with a capital N. We know their next move, we can plot what we're going to do before we get swept off our feet." Ford took the same stance as the twelve year old.

"They'll be staying here with us! They're probably lying about being kicked out and are spies or something. If we do agree, the least they'll do is pickpocket us..."

Ford glanced over at the full ghosts. They didn't seem to be paying attention, and Shadow was grooming itself. He leaned in to the two, checking again to see if the coast was clear. "Then we play them."

Danny considered this. "But... That's evil." His morals were kicking in.

"Uh huh. Almost as evil as ghosts taking over everything we know," Dipper reasoned, again siding with this great uncle.

"Suppose we do that, how will we come up with a plan so fast? We're on a bit of a clock." Danny knew everything was about to go wrong real quick, and his intuition told him not to trust anyone.

"Just tell Stan to betray someone and he won't need time for prep." Ford made it sound like that was personal. Dipper caught on and wondered for the millionth what they had been arguing about.

"Do you think he could legit do that on such short notice, because we're running out of options..." The two nodded their heads before he could even finish the sentence. "Fine. That settles it."

Danny marched over to Johnny 13 and held out his hand for a handshake. "Do we have a deal?"


End file.
